


Goodnight Sometimes

by Fontainebleau



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, References to Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-05-31 08:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 53,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15116063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: Goodnight and Billy Robicheaux take a working vacation, hoping it will give them a change of perspective, but the ghost town of Ezekiel's Crossing offers an unexpected experience for both of them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based in outline on the book _Charlotte Sometimes_ by Penelope Farmer, which I read long ago. Huge thanks to VillaKulla for help and encouragement in writing it!

‘There’s no need for that _Are you really sure about this, Goody?_ expression,’ says Goodnight briskly as they follow the corridor to the arrivals hall. 

‘Find your inner cowboy, it said,’ grouses Billy, ‘not give free rein to your exhibitionist streak.’ They’ve been having this conversation since they boarded the plane. 

‘Dressing the part’s half the challenge, cher,’ says Goodnight patiently. ‘Ruggedly handsome’s what we’re aiming for.’ Personally he thinks his outfit is well-chosen, the shirt and vest plain but well-fitting in an understated blue, with a watch-chain to hint that he’s a man of status, and the polished boots as authentic as he can manage without being crassly Western. The cravat he’ll own may be a bit much, but the overall effect, he hopes, is dandyish yet practical. 

Beside him Billy is as stylish as ever in narrow dark jeans, dark boots and a black leather vest which Goodnight just couldn’t resist buying for him. ‘Neither of us makes a remotely convincing cowboy dragging a suitcase on wheels.’ 

He has a point, but Goodnight’s not to be deterred. ‘Just you wait; once we’re mounted up, out in the sagebrush, you’ll forget we’ve ever been anything else.’ 

Billy looks at him pityingly. ‘All you want is a chance to swagger round in boots and a stetson showing your best angle to the camera.’ 

‘What if I do?’ grins Goodnight, ‘it’ll be good for us, get us outdoors. And it’s a responsible outfit: partnership between the Comanche nation and the ranch owner, and all developed to be sustainable.’ 

Billy rolls his eyes. ‘No need to sell it to me all over again: I’m here.’ 

‘And I can’t wait to see you on a horse with a six-gun and a lasso.’ Billy laughs in spite of himself and Goodnight leans into him to say in an undertone, ‘And if you play your cards right, I’ll let you see if you can’t find my inner cowboy later tonight.’ 

‘Be the only night either of us will have the energy, if the brochure’s to be believed,’ says Billy dryly, but Goodnight feels an affectionate squeeze to his hand. 

 

The arrivals hall is tiny, barely worthy of the name, the man holding up a sign which announces ‘Longhorne Travel’ under a stylised set of cattle horns the only sign of business apart from a couple of lounging taxi drivers. He’s bigger in real life than he looked in the photographs taken on his ranch, tall and burly with a grizzled beard, the kind of man who’d be intimidating if not for his welcoming smile; Goodnight’s mildly disappointed that he’s dressed plainly in jeans and flannel shirt. ‘Howdy,’ he greets them in an unexpectedly high soft voice. 

‘Mr Horne,’ says Goodnight, holding out a hand, ‘I’m Goodnight Robicheaux, and this is my husband.’ 

‘Billy Robicheaux,’ Billy introduces himself, and even after three years Goodnight still feels a little stab of pride at hearing him say it. 

‘Welcome to Texas,’ says Horne cheerfully, ‘and please call me Jack: I guarantee we’ll be hollering at each other about lost ear tags and misplaced fencing pliers before the week’s out, so we might as well start out familiar.’ 

‘This the right place for cowhands?’ asks a deep voice behind him, and Goodnight turns to see a serious-looking black guy on his own. ‘Sam Chisolm’s my name.’ 

Jack ticks him off on his list. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Sam. These here are-‘ 

‘Goody and Billy,’ says Goodnight, holding out a hand. He’s gratified to see that Sam’s made an effort, in a dark shirt with pearl buttons and a vest like Billy’s. ‘You look like all you need’s a silver star on your chest to be our sheriff.’ 

Sam smiles broadly. ‘Think I’m here to work, not just lounge about waiting for miscreants.’ 

‘That’s right,’ says Jack cheerfully, waving to another young couple who’ve just emerged into the hall. ‘We’ll have you out on the range, dawn till dusk, and beef jerky and well-water for chow.’ 

Billy raises an eyebrow at Goodnight behind Sam’s back. ‘It’ll be the making of us, cher,’ he assures him.

The young man and woman introduce themselves as Chloe and Mike; he’s tall and bearded, she small and slight, both dressed in serious-looking hiking gear, Mike carrying a bag of fishing tackle over one shoulder.

Jack checks them off. ‘That’s us: the others are out at the ranch already – you’ll meet them over dinner tonight. Transport this way.’ He leads their little group outside, the heat startling after the air-conditioned hall, the sun bouncing unmercifully from the tarmac. ‘Hot enough to stew a rattlesnake,’ he comments, pulling a pair of shades from his top pocket. 

 

Their transport’s a minibus emblazoned with the same Longhorne logo, driven by a handsome young man with long braided hair whom Goodnight pins as the indigenous half of the partnership. Jack introduces him: ‘My business partner, Red Harvest North; he was the one came up with the whole idea of reviving the town out on the reservation. You’ll be seeing some of him this week, while we get you trained up.’ Red Harvest nods at them affably. 

As they roll out of the airport Jack turns round in the front seat to outline the plan for their stay. ‘First week, we get you up on a horse, introduce you to the ranch and show you the lay of the land. We’re a working business – you’ll have the chance to learn to handle the stock, get to grips with how it all runs and maybe camp out a night or two.’

‘You did say no experience necessary,’ asks Sam a little nervously. 

‘Oh, we take raw tenderfeet who’ve never ridden a day and turn them into seasoned cowhands,’ Jack assures them seriously. ‘In two weeks you’ll be ready to throw in the desk job and take to the outdoor life. Anyway, once we get you licked into shape, we’ll head out to Zeke’s Crossing for a week on the range; this time of year we bring our stock in for the count then move them up to the hill pasture, and you’ll be working alongside the regular hands.’ 

‘Am I missing the part where it’s a vacation?’ asks Billy with a sideways glance at Goodnight; Jack chuckles. ‘Don’t fret, now. We’ll give you a day’s work, but there’ll be plenty of time to take in the landscape and kick back too.’

The country they’re rolling through is impressive enough, even though they’re just outside the town – rolling green-gold fields, hills purple in the distance, and occasional darker-green smudges of trees along the line of a river. ‘Big and empty out here,’ observes Goodnight to Sam, ‘just like in the cinema.’ 

Sam smiles. ‘I’m from Kansas, so big and empty ain’t strange, but the nature down here’s somewhat more lively.’ 

‘I’m a Louisiana man myself,’ says Goodnight, ‘but we live out on the West Coast now, where Billy’s from.’ Jack has got chatting with Chloe about horses, so Goodnight takes the opportunity to ask conspiratorially, ‘You got any relevant experience for all this?’ 

‘Well,’ says Sam in an undertone, ‘I understand a lot of the theory: I’m a high-school history teacher. But practice? Not so much. How ‘bout you - you know much about cow-punching?’ 

Goodnight grins again. ‘Exactly as much as you learn from the movies. Didn’t you want to be a cowboy when you were young?’ 

A flashing grin lights up Sam’s face. ‘Hell yes, like every little kid, twirling my six-guns and riding the range putting wrongs to right.’ 

‘Even I did,’ says Billy. ‘Never saw many cowboys like me on the screen, though, except for Yul Brynner, he was a badass.’ 

‘Well, not many like me either,’ says Sam, but Jack cuts in, ‘Now that’s just where Hollywood is wrong. Cowboys were often people of colour, the idea they were all white is just a fifties stereotype.’ 

‘You think you’ve suffered from misrepresention?’ adds Red Harvest. ‘All my people ever did on screen was hail down arrows and scalp settlers.’ His tone is so dry Goodnight finds it impossible to tell how serious he is. 

‘Well, I’m sure we’ll all make grade-A cowpunchers after a week under Jack’s instruction.’ 

Billy gives him an affectionate nugde. ‘Think there were any like you?’ he teases. ‘Lazy big-talking cowboys who’d rather sit under a tree and read poetry?’ 

‘You bet there were,’ says Goodnight loftily. ‘Someone had to keep culture afloat out there while everyone else was shooting each other.’ 

 

They’re soon passing under the gate of the ranch and along a winding track past barns and outbuildings to pull up outside the main house, an impressive spread in traditional style with long porches on two sides. Jack gets them organised with calm efficiency: ‘Your quarters are in the annexe behind, Sally’s there to give you your keys – be sure to make yourselves comfortable, ‘cause I guarantee this’ll be the last evening you won’t want to just lay face-down and sleep. Dinner’s in an hour up here in the main house, just come along when you’re ready. And feel free to take a wander round the place, meet the horses – any of our hands can explain where things are.’ 

Goodnight casts a glance at Billy as they trundle their cases along to the annexe: this vacation was his idea, Billy falling in with his plans with amused acceptance, and he wants it to be fun for both of them. He’s pleased enough when they unlock the door to a room that’s well-appointed and comfortable in a homely way, a patchwork quilt on the bed and two old-fashioned armchairs next to a broad window looking out over the fields; it’s unpretentious, but there’s also a top-notch bathroom and a generously-stocked fridge. 

Billy sets down his suitcase, then comes to hug him. ‘Stop looking so anxious: we’re going to enjoy it.’ 

‘I know you didn’t…’ begins Goodnight, but Billy pulls him closer and kisses him to silence, then reaches up to smooth a thumb over the crease between his brows. ‘It’s a good idea. Time with you. No patients, no emergencies, no two-am phone calls…’ 

‘No phone calls at all,’ warns Goodnight, ‘and no TV.’ 

Good,’ says Billy firmly. ‘We could both do with a change of pace.’ He sits down on the bed and tugs Goodnight gently but insistently towards him. ‘I’m sure we can think of some other ways to entertain ourselves.’ 

 

By the time they head up to the ranch for dinner there’s already a lively sound of conversation; Goodnight leads the way into the huge central room, dominated by a stone fireplace, and more than big enough to contain the crowd already there. Jack’s overseeing the ferrying of dishes to a long table in the room behind, and waves at them to join the others. Billy’s usually diffident in a crowd of strangers, so Goodnight ploughs straight in, shaking hands and introducing them. 

There’s another couple, middle-aged this time, who introduce themselves confusingly as Chloe and Frank – the two Chloes already seem to have made friends, though bearded Mike is enduring a rather one-sided conversation as Frank holds forth about the iniquities of land zoning, and he gladly takes the chance to break off and introduce the two younger women. Mariah, a dark woman in leather jacket and piercings, is the more confident, a protective arm around her partner Abbie, who’s tall, fair and rosy-cheeked. ‘Nice boots,’ says Goodnight approvingly, taking in her cherry-red Doc Martens. 

‘Could say the same,’ says Mariah, with a smirk. 

‘Cavalry special,’ says Goodnight proudly.

‘You ride?’ asks Abbie, and Goodnight musters his best grin. ‘Unfortunately no, though I’m sure that will change soon enough.’ 

It soon emerges that Abbie and the Chloes are seasoned riders, but the others readily declare themselves to be as inexpert as him and Billy: what must Jack think, wonders Goodnight, as he comes over with drinks for them, having overpaid middle-class types come to play at working the land alongside him? But don’t all ranchers have to diversify these days? 

‘Don’t you mind having your ranch overrun by a bunch of useless tenderfeet in our terrible outfits?’ he asks, accepting a glass. 

Jack guffaws. ‘I think you look fine and dandy, Goodnight. But I’m guessing you think I was born to this life myself.’ 

‘No?’ asks Goodnight, surprised; if you’d asked him he’d have said that Jack had grown up in a cabin in the wilds, as much part of nature as the trees and birds. 

‘Naw, I was as much a city kid as any of you,’ says Jack, ‘all I knew of animals was what I saw on TV, and when I started out I worked in corporate law in Dallas, on the way to driving myself into an early grave.’ 

‘So what was it changed your mind?’ Billy’s never other than outwardly composed, but Goodnight’s glad to see him relaxed enough to join in the conversation. 

‘Took a trip out to the mountains on my own.’ Jack looks positively evangelical. ‘Showed me what’s really important: was a while before I found the courage to make the leap, but I never regretted it, not for one minute. Won’t say it’s not a sound business model, but getting folks out here to see another way of life, well, that’s a gift.’ 

Sam appears last, as Jack heads back to finish the preparation, and Goodnight waves him over to join them. ‘Jack was telling us he used to be a lawyer before he was a rancher, would you ever have figured that?’ 

‘He’s an advertisement for the change,’ agrees Sam. ‘You never said exactly what you do, though from what Billy said I’d hazard something in the literary line.’ 

‘I’m a translator,’ says Goodnight. ‘Books, fiction mostly. I specialise in the science fiction and fantasy market.’ 

‘And that means if you want to know what the French is for photon torpedoes,’ adds Billy, ‘Goody’s your man.’ 

Sam raises an eyebrow. ‘ _Torpilles à photons_ ,’ says Goodnight with a resigned air. ‘I did some Star Trek tie-ins.’ 

Sam laughs. ‘And you?’ he asks Billy. 

‘I’m a surgeon,’ says Billy gravely.’ ‘Reconstruction after trauma.’ Goodnight can never help but feel trivial in comparison, though he knows Billy never thinks of it that way. 

‘Useful job,’ says Sam genially. 

‘Yours too,’ says Goodnight, ‘training the minds of the next generation.’ 

Sam pulls a face. ‘Sometimes. Sometimes it feels like a combination of crowd control and arguing with the state legislature about whose history it is we’re telling.’ 

‘I’m sure Red Harvest would agree with that.’ 

Sam nods seriously. ‘’Hoping to talk to him some, if he’ll let me.’ 

Sam’s easy to warm to, self-effacing but with a quiet humour; Goodnight can’t help wondering why he’s here alone. But as Jack ushers them through to sit around the long table and eat he supposes it’s the right kind of vacation for a man without a significant other. 

He’s careful to see Billy set between him and Sam; communal dinners he’s sure were low on Billy’s list for a vacation experience, but though it’s a slightly odd sensation, to be sitting down so friendly with a bunch of people they’ve only just met, it’s easier than he expected, and Jack proves expert at drawing his guests in with the tale of how he developed the ranch and a genuine enthusiasm for the land and wildlife around. 

 

At a lull in their conversation Goodnight catches a name he recognises and leans forward to interject, ‘Ezekiel’s Crossing. Looked it up because it sounded too good to be true.’ 

Jack chuckles. ‘It’s real enough – county’s full of ghost towns: sprung up for droving or mines, did well for a while, then just died on their asses when things changed. Zeke’s Crossing was real prosperous in its time from all the stock passing through on the cattle trails, but when the trade stopped it was abandoned practically overnight.’ 

‘And it ended up in native territory,’ comments Sam. 

Jack nods. ‘Was Red’s idea first: we’re a joint venture, my land bordering with the reservation, Eagle Fork reservation, that is, and Red with some of their younger ones had the notion of bringing the town back to life. It’s unusual because so much of it is still there – well, you’ll see for yourselves. We’ve been restoring it for the authentic Western experience.’ 

‘That sounds fine to me,’ says Frank, ‘living like a free man on the wild frontier, no government to worry about.’ 

‘Not sure all of us would appreciate that the same,’ says Mariah sharply, ‘can’t say I’d like to wear a sunbonnet, get married off at fifteen and die giving birth to my eighth child.’ 

‘I think we can all be grateful for antibiotics and indoor sanitation,’ says Jack mildly; it’s a neat diversion. 

‘Well, I can’t wait,’ says Goodnight, ‘lounging outside the saloon with an itchy trigger finger and spitting tobacco.’ 

‘He always like this?’ asks Sam of Billy, moustache twitching. 

‘Oh yes,’ says Billy fondly, and a warm hand squeezes his knee under the table.

 

After dinner Goodnight excuses himself and heads outside; he could sit on the porch, still within sound of the laughter and conversation, but instead he takes himself away down the path a little, where he can lean against a fence and light up with a grimace of self reproach. He shouldn’t, but one battle at a time. 

The only lights are behind him: he can just make out the dark shapes of grazing horses in the paddock, and the barns stand out black against the starry sky. What’s most striking is the silence, no hum of traffic or distant sirens, just a huge echoing night. It’s what he came here for, a change. He doesn’t want to change his life – it’s the best it’s been, an occupation he enjoys and a good living, and his marriage to Billy far more than he ever hoped for. But he is oddly attracted by the idea of putting on an outfit and becoming someone different for two weeks, not him, Goodnight Robicheaux, with his manifold faults and regrets. He blows out a stream of smoke. _Perhaps I just spend too much time introspecting. Hazard of the job_. 

Footsteps crunch quietly behind him and Goodnight holds out an arm without speaking; he’s easy to find with the ash glowing in the dark. Billy leans up against his side, elbows on the rail. ‘Done with company for the night?’ 

‘Except for yours,’ says Billy. 

Goodnight leans closer, shoulder against his. ‘They seemed OK, apart from that guy Frank: though if he’s the only traditional Texas type we find here, we’ve done well.’ 

‘Come to find his inner mountain man,’ scoffs Billy. ‘I like Mariah. And Sam.’ 

‘So do I,’ says Goodnight. ‘Wonder why he’s here on his own?’ 

Billy huffs a laugh. ‘Being single’s not a crime.’ 

‘No, but he’s good-looking, pleasant, good job, interesting. Shouldn’t think he’d need to be alone if he don’t want.’ 

‘Don’t think now’s the time for you to start interfering,’ says Billy, amused; he’s probably right. 

‘Other people, though, it’s fascinating.’ Goodnight shifts position, hip still a little stiff from the flight, and as he digs at it Billy’s hand closes over his. 

‘Let me.’ Practised fingers find just the spot and Goodnight sighs in relief. ‘Busman’s holiday for you. Shouldn’t have to do it after all this time.’ 

‘Don’t need to,’ says Billy, sliding his hand up to massage at the small of his back. ‘Want to.’

Goodnight finishes his cigarette and stubs it out carefully, then they stand for a while longer, soaking up the silence. ‘Think you can hack it for a fortnight?’ he asks. 

Billy turns him round, exasperated. ‘I like it here. I’m glad we came.’ 

Goodnight wishes he didn’t struggle so to believe it. ‘Will you still feel like that when it’s bedrolls round the campfire and – what was it, beef jerky and well water?’ 

Billy laughs and moves closer into his embrace. ‘Better make the most of that bed while we’ve got it, hadn’t we?’ 

\--

The first week is as enjoyable as Goodnight could have hoped: the learning curve is steep but they’re all in it together, no one expert at everything, and it’s fun – the horse he’s given, a chestnut mare called Adelaide, is sweet-tempered and patient with an awkward rider, the ranch hands, Brent, Alice and Téo, are sunnily helpful and the gentle rides, punctuated with lazy outdoor lunches and lessons in handling the stock, are relaxing and invigorating. 

He has to admit he’s slightly piqued by the ease with which Billy takes to the outdoor life, at home on horseback in a couple of days, and constantly astounding him with a knowledge of plants and animals picked up apparently out of nowhere: Goodnight can’t fathom how he makes it look so effortless. He’s no expert, but when he sees Billy sitting easy in his saddle, delicate wrists flexing as he practices with a rope, it’s easy to imagine him an old-fashioned cowboy, frowning seriously as he listens to Brent explaining how to read an ear tag or calm a panicking steer. It's a relief that Sam tends to gravitate to his and Billy’s company: he enjoys his sharp and laconic observations, and doesn’t feel such a fool tangling his rope or letting a steer evade his driving with Sam as cheerfully incompetent beside him.

The other guests are amiable and pleasant, the ranch big enough for everyone to find their space, and eating round the big dinner table in the evening, Jack presiding benevolently at its head, becomes a sociable routine. Frank tends to air his political views rather readily, and Mariah won’t back down from an argument, but Jack and Sam prove adept at keeping the peace, and their collective efforts at learning the outdoor life give them plenty to bond over. 

Though he and Billy are tired enough at night from the fresh air and exertion to sleep soundly, they’re not too tired to find some inventive ways to pass their evenings, and by the week’s end even Billy’s habitual tension has drained away; the business of the everyday feels small and far away, as though Goodnight is looking at his regular life through the wrong end of a telescope. Maybe Jack really is onto something. 

\--

On their last full day at the ranch Red appears again to take their group on the most ambitious ride so far, across reservation territory to see an imposing set of canyons. Jack’s assured them often enough that the only way to appreciate the country is on horseback, and once they’re alone in the landscape with the breeze on his face, the creaking of harness and the scent of horse and leather combining with pungent artemisia and sumac, Goodnight feels that he’s expanded with the horizons, full to the brim with sight and sound and sensation. _This was a good idea_. He nudges Adelaide closer to Billy so their knees touch, to make him smile.

Red’s as talkative as Goodnight’s seen him, pointing out landmarks and relating their tales, plainly keen to share his love of his home. ‘Ghost town’s over that way,’ – he points off to the right – ‘though we won’t get close to it today.’ 

‘You’re OK with bringing us tourists to play out our dreams of the Old West on the reservation?’ asks Billy curiously. 

Red’s laugh is quiet but genuine. ‘I’m an American and a native, but mostly I’m an entrepreneur. You use what you have, and if what we have is a perfect old-time cattle town just like in the movies, that’s what we’ll sell.’ He settles back to his habitual seriousness. ‘And it’s not all play-acting: Jack would be rounding up his stock nearby anyway–‘ 

‘And even if we’re mostly useless we’re still free labour,’ finishes Goodnight. 

Red frowns off in the direction of the town. ‘It’s been good to bring some life back to it: when I was growing up it was just empty. Eerie. Like the people had just walked away one day and left it.’ Goodnight pictures it, abandoned all those years, a town which just stopped one day when the last inhabitant latched the door, got up on his wagon and drove away, leaving the streets deserted and the shutters rattling in the wind, coyotes snuffling round the buildings and owls nesting in the chimneys. ‘When I was a kid we used to dare each other to stay there overnight.’ 

‘And did you?’ asks Goodnight, amused. 

‘Once,’ says Red, eyes on the horizon. He nods thoughtfully. ‘Like I said. Eerie.’

 

The series of interlocking canyons they’ve come to see prove well worth the trip, the sun lighting the scoured bands of the rockface to vivid colour, and they follow the canyon edge for a while, before dismounting to picnic. Red, with prompting, delivers an informal class on the animals and plants around them, darting lizards and silvery Texas sage, but after a while Goodnight detaches himself and hikes a little way along the cliff to smoke, finding a spot where he can sit against a rock with an uninterrupted view right down to the river that meanders along the canyon bottom. 

Below him a bird soars on the updraft, and he leans back, face to the sun, savouring the bite of the tobacco and the warmth of the baked rock beneath him. He’s almost ready to start believing in the healing power of nature. Could this place be what he needs to finally knit his fractured self back into a whole again? The accident had shattered his thigh, and that could be pinned and mend again, but its brutal lesson, imparted in the single moment of impact, that fate was unreliable and life fragile, had fractured him somewhere deep at the same time, and putting that together again – well, he’d found ways, in a bottle and then in a vial of pills, and after, he hoped, in Billy’s warm hands, but he’s never found his old self-assurance again. Could it all be that simple out here, like with Jack?

He reaches a finger into his vest pocket to touch the tiny pill box tucked away there: he shouldn’t have it, doesn’t need it; he should throw it away, send it bouncing into the scrub for the curious jays to peck at, but he just can’t bring himself to do it. He tells himself it’s talismanic, that just feeling its little metal ridges under his fingertips is enough; he’s given them up, put them behind him, but guilt still nags. Does Billy know? He must, though he’s never asked, never forced him to promise or to lie. Billy’s seen the worst of him, and met it with unjudging acceptance; Goodnight’s said it more than once, _You deserve better than me_ , but all he ever gets is that serious dark gaze and Billy saying simply, ‘You’re all I want.’ 

He’s roused from his reflections by approaching footsteps, the tread too heavy to be Billy, and he gives a welcoming smile as Sam drops down next to him. 

‘Come to tell me I shouldn’t?’ Goodnight waves his cigarette, but Sam produces a cigar with a wry twist of his mouth. 

‘Come to ask for a light.’ He puffs on it until it’s lit, then settles back with a contented sigh. ‘Should give it up.’ 

‘So say we all,’ says Goodnight. He gestures at the view. ‘If Jack could bottle this he’d be the richest man in America.’ 

Sam surveys it thoughtfully. ‘Changes your ideas some, being out here, he’s right about that.’ 

‘That what you’ve come for?’ Goodnight doesn’t want to pry; Sam’s given little of himself away so far, but in the face of nature’s splendour he seems as introspective as Goodnight himself. 

Sam pulls a face. ‘My divorce just went through. No one’s fault, just came to the point where what we wanted was too different, but it’s a hard thing all the same.’ Explains why he’s been so diffident: Goodnight nods without offering an opinion and Sam continues, eyes fixed on the river below, ‘Business of it has set me wondering about some other things too. Teaching’s a good career, but the job found me more than the other way round – after college I needed something secure, so I could look after – well, be near my family, and once I’d started out it was fine, I enjoy the history and the kids are great,’ – Goodnight can imagine that few would put much over Mr Chisolm – ‘but, well, I’ve been doing some thinking lately about where I want to be and what I want to be doing, and things don’t seem as clear as they did.’ 

‘Changed career myself,’ volunteers Goodnight, ‘though not of my own accord. Needed a job I could do sitting down.’ Sam raises his eyebrows and Goodnight realises he’s being vague. ‘Was in an accident, while ago now, just a random thing, but it took me time to recover, and after, well … it was different.’ Sam nods reflectively: they survey the scenery for a while, side by side. 

Eventually Goodnight smiles. ‘How Billy and I met. He pinned my hip back together.’ 

‘Saw so much you had to marry him?’ Sam’s teasing, and Goodnight’s glad of the humour to lighten the memories. 

‘Something like that.’ 

‘Good come out of bad, then. You been married long?’ 

‘Three years.’ Goodnight strokes his thumb over his wedding band. It’s a habit Billy teases him for when he notices: _It’s been three years, Goody, it’s not just going to vanish_. _Just checking_ , Goodnight always says, taking Billy’s hand to run his fingers over the cool metal on his finger. _Could Billy and I ever come to that?_

Sam eyes him ruefully. ‘Didn’t come here to cast a pall on things.’ 

Goodnight shakes his head, ‘Think we’re all here for a fresh perspective on life. Jack’s right, though, being out here, it does make everything else seem small.’ He gestures down at the canyon. ‘Think of the time it took to carve that. Human stories, here and gone in an eyeblink.’ 

Sam huffs out a laugh, rising reluctantly to his feet. ‘Don’t be sharing that idea around, or you’ll see me out of a job.’ He holds out a hand to help Goodnight up. ‘C’mon.’ 

 

When they gather for dinner that night, cheerfully sunburnt and with a sense of achievement, Jack warns them with comic severity, ‘You’ve been on vacation so far – now the real work’s going to begin.’ 

‘Tell us the plan, boss,’ urges Mariah, and Jack twinkles at her. 

‘We’ll be bringing the stock in from the range, then cutting them out in small groups to move them to the pens. ‘Course in the old days they took them through on the drove trail, right up to Abilene; the hands would be weeks taking them there, eating from the chuckwagon and camping out, but I haven’t figured out a way to make a vacation experience out of that which folks will tolerate. So you’ll be bunking in town and going out to work the cattle each day.’ 

‘And everything just like old times?’ Goodnight glances at Billy: he’s been nervous about how Billy’s going to take this. 

‘Everything authentic,’ says Jack firmly. 

‘There going to be a whole bunch of Ren-Fair re-enactors in costume to make us feel at home? asks Frank, ‘A sheriff and deputies, fancy-dressed card-sharps and saloon girls in low-cut-’ He winces as Chloe kicks him under the table. 

‘I’ll be the fancy-dressed card-sharp,’ says Goodnight at once. 

‘I’ll be the madam with a pistol in her cleavage who doesn’t take any shit,’ says Mariah, glaring at Frank, who seems gratified to have provoked her. 

‘I don’t need card sharps or madams, or storekeepers or saloon girls for that matter,’ reproves Jack, ‘what I need are working cowhands. And don’t pack up more than you need: idea’s to get you living like in old times. I always say we should make you take what’ll fit in one saddlebag.’ 

Sam snorts. ‘A change of socks and underwear, and a clean shirt for Sunday?’ 

‘About right,’ agrees Jack sunnily, ‘and if you grow a beard like mine you won’t need a razor.’

\--

They ride into town. Of course they do, along the trail, kicking up dust, hats tilted against the sun. Jack and Red lead the way, Jack fully in the spirit of things in a cap with a coonskin tail. They’re laden with saddlebags beside canteens and coils of rope on their saddles, though despite Jack’s threat, their suitcases have been packed into a trailer to follow them over. 

Goodnight feels idiotic, part of a cavalcade of tourists, dressed up in his boots and hat, yet at the same time, as the dark specks of the town’s storefronts come inching over the horizon, wavering in the midday heat, it’s like being in every Western he’s ever seen. Sam’s beside him cool in black, and Billy at his shoulder; they could be prospectors, heading out West with the dream of a fortune, or gunfighters scraping a living in a lawless territory. 

As they pass the sign announcing that they’re visiting Ezekiel’s Crossing Mike chuckles. ‘Should be music playing as we ride in for the shootout.’ And he’s right, the town is just like a filmset, no more than a single dusty street of one- and two-storey buildings with a wooden sidewalk running in front of them, a scatter of sheds and barns set haphazardly behind. Those are old and weathered, their planks warped and windows empty, but on the street the false fronts of the stores are freshly painted. A sign promises clean beds and cheap meals at a boxy whitewashed boarding-house; next to it is a squat mail office and then the General Store, its door propped open with a barrel, and beside that a handsome building with etched glass doors. The large livery stables are obviously back in use, doors thrown open to show stalls full of straw, and at the end of the street beside the bathhouse stands the biggest building in town, the sign on its balcony declaring it to be the Diamondback Saloon.

It’s perfect down to the last detail, but then Goodnight realises he’s not thinking about it the right way. This isn’t a facsimile, created to look authentic: it’s the real thing, as it was built by the settlers who came here. They cut and sawed and hammered the wooden buildings, made the sidewalks, turned the hitching-post and dug the well. Real cowboys boarded in the whitewashed hostel, scrubbed themselves in the bathhouse and drank in the saloon, the storekeepers and saloon girls took their money, and everyone made a living.

‘Some of the signs must be original,’ says Billy, nudging his horse forward. 

‘Most are,’ agrees Jack. ‘Painted them up again. Weather’d damaged a lot of the buildings, took some cleaning out and repairing, but inside – there was still the fancy mirror behind the bar in the saloon, and the tubs and copper at the bathhouse; even furniture and crockery. Like all the people had just walked away and it was waiting for them to come back.’ 

They halt outside the stable and when two hands come out Goodnight’s actually surprised to see Téo in his brightly-patterned shirt and a cheerful curly-haired young woman: he half-expected a hoary ostler in a sacking apron. By now they can all chime in with Jack’s mantra: ‘Your horse is your living: always tend to him first.’

When the horses are stabled and they reassemble outside the white-boarded hotel Goodnight expects Jack to offer a full tour, but instead he’s brisk and to the point. ‘Got your gear? You’ll find your beds here – Silas at the desk will help get you settled. Chow’s in the dining room, breakfast and dinner, don’t be late when you hear the bell or you’ll go without; if you want to wash off the trail dust, bathhouse’s at the end of the street.’ 

_What?_ Goodnight is close enough to Sam to see his own consternation mirrored on his face. ‘Any stuff you’re missing, guess you could try the store,’ continues Jack blithely, ‘and once you’re fixed up I recommend you do what all cowboys do – hit the saloon for a shot or two and a game of cards.’ And with that he strides away. 

Goodnight’s aghast. ‘He can’t be serious,’ he starts faintly. 

‘Bathhouse at the end of the _street_?’ Chloe sounds as horrified as he feels. 

‘What’s the betting breakfast will be grits and beans?’ asks Abbie dolefully as Mariah puts a consoling arm around her. 

Beside him Billy picks up his saddlebag and slings it over his shoulder. He shakes his head at Goodnight. ‘Should have read the small print.’ 

Sam pats Goodnight on the back, looking just as shaken as him. ‘We can always shoot each other, get ourselves invalided out,’ he offers under his breath. ‘We can say it was an accident.’

 

The inside of the boarding-house is as authentic as can be, a fine wooden staircase covered with a threadbare carpet and a few brass ornaments to brighten the dim interior. Behind an imposing mahogany desk complete with glass inkwell and frayed blotting sheet stands Silas, who proves to be fat and reassuring. 

‘Jack enjoys his little introduction: you guys just take your time and look around.’ He slides their key across the desk to Billy with a friendly wink. 

Billy seems blithely unconcerned as they thud up the stairs and unlock their door to reveal a sparsely-furnished room. There’s a bed with a brass bedstead, a dresser with a jug and basin on top and a single wooden chair. The wallpaper is faded enough to be original, and a cross-stitched text in a frame on the wall exhorts them to look to the state of their eternal souls. Goodnight stands and looks around himself. ‘Is this- how are we supposed to–’ 

He collapses onto the chair, which is as uncomfortable as it looks, then points accusingly under the bed. ‘This can’t be true.’ He ducks down and emerges with a flowered chamber pot. ‘Jack is a madman: how does he think we can live like this?’ 

Billy looks puzzled. ‘But it was in the small print.’ 

Goodnight’s stomach sinks. ‘What was?’ 

‘Authentic frontier lifestyle. Shared outhouse, bath once a week and breakfast from six to six-thirty.’ Goodnight stares at him in baffled horror; Billy says earnestly, ‘I thought it was what you wanted.’ 

‘I-,’ Goodnight’s simply lost for words, then Billy’s mouth twitches and he dissolves into laughter, tackling him down onto the bed. The brass frame jingles, but to his surprise the mattress is resilient and comfortable, not thin and lumpy. ‘Your face! Did you really not read the small print? They promise “authenticity, but not at the guests’ expense”. 

He leaps up to open what appears to be the door to a dingy cupboard to reveal a sparkling white-tiled bathroom. ‘The bathhouse is for soaking – in real tin tubs, apparently – but we don’t really have to rough it. And –‘ there’s a thump outside and a soft knock – ‘those will be our bags.’ 

Goodnight slumps back onto the bed, weak with relief and chagrin. ‘My heart isn’t up to this.’

 

The rest of the town proves to work on the same principle: restored to every appearance of frontier living, but with modern amenities hidden behind the nineteenth-century facade. They peek in at the dining room, where spindly chairs stand around bare wooden tables but the clatter from behind the baize door betrays a modern kitchen, its gusting aromas more than tempting. The General Store has the look you’d expect, with barrels of vegetables and stacks of unappetising-looking tins, but behind the vintage display are shelves of snacks and drinks, sunscreen and insect repellent, bootlaces and blister pads, and even hats and socks. The bathhouse, they’re assured by another keen young man, one of Red’s fellow entrepreneurs, has been fully restored to use geothermal heating, and can offer massage and mud treatments as well as a scrub in a tin bathtub. 

They end their tour at the saloon, pushing open the swing doors to find it perfect down to the last detail, from the aged piano and mirror advertising Ayer’s sarsaparilla to the brass spittoons; Jack, looking immensely pleased with himself, is ensconced at one of the tables. ‘Did it have you going?’ 

‘You have no idea,’ says Billy with one of his rare broad grins. ‘Especially the chamber pot.’ 

‘It’s a place and a half,’ says Jack, cackling with laughter, ‘and it’s a shame not to give you the full experience.’ 

‘It’s amazing,’ says Goodnight, drawing up a chair, ‘and if that shot of whiskey’s still on offer, I’m sorely in need of it.’ 

With a fine Tennessee whiskey in hand Goodnight leans back, shoulder to shoulder with Billy, soaking in the surroundings and feeling like a real cowboy as the other guests come filtering in to slap Jack on the back and compare reactions.

‘We try to make it as real as possible when guests arrive,’ declares Jack with satisfaction, ‘but you’ll see some modern things, can’t do without them entirely. There are some trailers around so we can bring in fresh food or take stock out if we need to, and we keep a radio.’ 

‘I honestly thought I’d stepped into a movie.’ Sam is leaning against the bar looking every inch the gunslinger. 

‘Doesn’t it go to people’s heads?’ asks Goodnight curiously. He can just imagine staging a shootout outside in the dust of the street, two hardfaced men facing each other down, hands hovering over their Colts. 

‘We have had folk take it a mite too seriously,’ agrees Jack. ‘Couple of years back, when we started out, we had this one guy, really threw himself into it. First morning here, he started insisting he was a gambler, not a cowhand: was determined to stay in here and play cards, said that was how he made his living.’ 

Goodnight raises an eyebrow at Billy, who grins back as he promises, ‘No slacking from us. We’ll be putting in a proper day’s work.’ 

 

Dinner, in the austere setting of the boarding-house, is excellent, and the evening in the saloon which follows appropriately riotous; at the night’s end they stand together on the wooden sidewalk out front, leaning on the rail, music and laughter behind them. The town, as fits Jack’s vision, is mostly unlit, the sense of distance from the world intensified by the darkness, and Goodnight stands, the wood rough under his hands, drinking in the cool air and moonlight. 

Billy leans against him, reaching for his hand. ‘Real cowboys didn’t do this,’ he says as Goodnight slides an arm round his waist. 

‘I don’t know.’ Goodnight nuzzles under his ear and feels his smile. ‘Out on the frontier men had to make do with each other, didn’t they?’ 

Billy turns into his arms. ‘Shall we go and make that bedstead rattle?’ 

‘Nothing too strenuous,’ warns Goodnight, punctuating his words with a kiss, ‘we’ve a day in the saddle ahead of us tomorrow.’

And later, as Billy drifts easily into sleep beside him Goodnight lies listening to the occasional creak and tick of the old building around them and the ringing silence of the plains, and finally allows himself to feel proud of his choice of vacation.


	2. Chapter 2

Goodnight rolls over, clinging to sleep: Billy’s poking him awake. ‘C’mon. Sun’s up.’ 

He looks blearily at the pale light filtering through the curtain. ‘Barely. Get some more rest, cher.’ He settles back into the bed but Billy huffs impatiently, tossing the covers back. 

‘Now.’ Goodnight sits up sleepily to reclaim them; he doesn’t remember going to sleep in his shirt, but plainly he did. Billy’s already out of bed, reaching for his clothes. ‘Come on, should be up and eating.’ 

‘Can’t fault your enthusiasm,’ says Goodnight, rubbing his head. Getting up at dawn wasn’t the plan, but he did want to enter into the spirit of it. ‘Can I take first shower?’ 

‘Shower?’ Billy’s already stepping into his pants, but he pauses to look at Goodnight blankly. 

‘Shower,’ says Goodnight patiently. ‘You know, get clean. And awake.’ 

‘You can save clean till the end of the week,’ says Billy, picking up his vest, ‘and if you’re talking you’re awake.’ 

Goodnight watches as Billy shrugs into the vest and buttons it. ‘Don’t you think that’s taking the whole authenticity thing a bit far?’ 

Billy shakes his head with the look of fond exasperation he knows. ‘Even yet, sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ He stamps his boots on. ‘I’m going to eat, but if you’re really so concerned about washing I’ll get you some water first.’ He picks up the jug and heads for the door. 

Goodnight sits for a moment, yawning – who’d have thought Billy of all people would take historical realism to such lengths? – then bounds out of bed and across the room to the shower. He flings open the door and stops short, staring into a shallow cupboard. The shelves are bare and dusty. _The bathroom…_ He taps at the planks of the wall, bewildered – last night there had been glass and gleaming tile, shower and basin and… But a bathroom can’t just disappear. 

Billy comes back again, china jug in hand, and sees him gawping at the cupboard. ‘Something wrong?’ 

He opens his mouth to expostulate, but there’s not a twitch on Billy’s face: he’s playing it perfectly. Remembering yesterday afternoon Goodnight determines to go along with it: after all, Billy did seem to have read the small print. ‘Let me just wash and I’ll catch you up.’ 

‘Keep you some eggs,’ says Billy cheerfully as he puts the jug down next to the basin and then clumps away along the corridor. 

Goodnight turns back to look in the cupboard again. Maybe it’s some cunning interior trick to convince the guests they’ve really stepped into the past. Well, he can take it on the chin, so he fills the basin and finds the bar of hard soap under the rim, splashing his face and neck with the tepid water. His hair is a little itchy but he smooths it down as best he can, then dresses. 

What he can see in the murky slip of mirror on the chest seems to tell him he looks presentable; he’s still pleased with the effect of the cravat. He picks up his hat to put it on, but as he does he sees that its inner band is already stained and unpleasantly greasy, so he tosses it back onto the bed – he can buy a spare from the store. He sets off along the corridor. Must be some kind of bathroom round here - he’s _not_ going to use that flowery pot under the bed. 

 

By the time he gets downstairs Billy’s already sitting at one of the small tables with a plate of breakfast, eating with concentration; a second tin cup of coffee sits at the place opposite. Goodnight takes an appreciative swallow, then waits while a harried-looking woman fetches a plate for him. Despite what Jack said, everyone seems to be in some kind of period dress this morning, though the waitress looks bad-tempered enough about it; he supposes it must be a trial, to cook and fetch and carry for the guests and be expected to act a part too. He smiles in what he hopes is a friendly way, but when she plonks his plate down unceremoniously in front of him, his smile fades. It’s a disappointing offering, the bacon undercooked and flabby, eggs hard and watery, and a burnt biscuit balanced on the edge. 

‘They’re not serious,’ he exclaims to Billy, who pauses, fork to mouth. ‘Just eat it. It’ll settle your stomach and you won’t get through without it.’ 

‘But it’s –‘ Goodnight prods at the unappetising mess and takes an experimental bite of the biscuit. ‘I’d say they’re having trouble in the kitchen, to be generous, but if I eat this I’ll have tooth troubles of my own.’ 

‘Eat the bacon, then,’ says Billy unsympathetically: he’s already scraping up the last of his eggs. 

Goodnight looks around hopefully. ‘Can’t I get some pancakes? Or even granola and fruit?’ 

To his surprise Billy laughs, a wholehearted laugh. ‘Who are you this morning? The Emperor of Cathay?’ It’s not really funny, but his flashing grin is always a reward and Goodnight matches it with one of his own. Billy stands up and reaches for his hat. ‘Eat what you can while I get the horses: we can’t hang around.’

Goodnight swallows what he can stomach of his breakfast, then goes back up to fetch his hat – plainly there’s not going to be time to look for a replacement. Billy comes thudding back up the stairs and _tsks_ in irritation when he sees Goodnight still not ready. 

‘Horses are outside,’ he says, passing him a strikingly authentic-looking gunbelt, complete with a pearl-handled revolver and bullets in little custom loops. 

Goodnight quirks a smile. ‘Did say I wanted a six-shooter.’ Billy, meanwhile, has tugged on a pair of black fighter’s gloves and is buckling on a belt festooned with knives. ‘You look like a shiny porcupine,’ says Goodnight, then, at Billy’s look of puzzlement, adds admiringly, ‘You really look the part.’ 

He looks positively dangerous, severe in black and white, hair caught up to emphasise his high cheekbones, all lean muscle and energy; Goodnight snakes an arm around his waist and leans in to kiss him, smelling of coffee and bacon and musk. Billy laughs into it with an affectionate squeeze in return, then uncoils himself. 

‘Come on,’ he says, and Goodnight follows him downstairs, dwelling on some ideas of what they can do with those gloves later on.

 

Adelaide is waiting at the hitching post, tail swishing; she whickers in recognition as he pats her neck, though when he reaches into his pocket for a treat for her, he comes up empty. He rubs her nose instead, then mount ups and follows Billy’s brisk pace down the street. 

In Goodnight’s view it’s still ludicrously early, the sun low on the horizon, but as they set out over the plain he has to admit it’s a fine sight at this time of day, the air still cool from the night and the sun touching the landscape into colour. He can’t fault Billy’s enthusiasm, and he feels himself breaking into a smile as they canter through the brush, still heavy with dew.

He’d not seen any of the other guests at breakfast, and at this hour of the day he supposed they’d have plenty of time to sit and enjoy being alone under the newly-washed sky, so he’s surprised when they come in sight of the pasture to see the cattle already being efficiently gathered to move, horses kicking up dust as they move up and down the line, settling into drive formation. 

The boss who comes galloping over as they approach is a man Goodnight’s not met before, dark-haired and strikingly handsome, but he greets them with the surliest expression and a curt ‘’Bout time. You’ll fill in on the left, behind Mose: make it double-quick.’ 

_Taking it a bit far_ , thinks Goodnight, but Billy just jerks a nod and heads off to position. Well, if there’s a challenge then he’ll rise to it: it’s what they came for, after all. 

Getting the cattle moving isn’t too hard, and once they’re flowing along he feels like a proper cowboy, riding the line of moving steers as they rumble forward under the rising sun. In the dust and shouting it’s hard to keep track of Billy or anyone else, but Goodnight thinks he’s keeping his end up satisfactorily, the cows moving steadily as Adelaide paces beside them. The sun gets stronger as it mounts the sky, and he begins to regret his heavy coat, stylish though it is. 

After a while the cattle ahead begin to slow and spread out along a sparkling thread of water, and he loosens his collar gratefully: more than time for a break. At the riverbank where the hands have spread out to let their horses drink Goodnight looks around optimistically for some refreshment – a cooler of sodas, maybe? No sign of that, but then he spots one of the other hands filling a canteen upstream of the cattle and remembers he has one of those too, strapped to the horn of his saddle, so he fills it and quenches his thirst with water. 

It’s a shorter break than he hoped: before he has time to find Billy they’re urging the herd on again across the river – presumably the crossing that gives the town its name – and he has to swing back onto Adelaide to keep up. The water’s shallow enough to ford easily, but once the cattle have crossed it rapidly becomes clear how easy they’ve been having it so far. Before, the animals must have scented fresh water and moved willingly towards it; now they’re reluctant, trying to fan out to graze and dodging too easily into any gap that opens in the line of hands. 

Riding in a straight line is one thing, but heading off recalcitrant steers is another: Goodnight just can’t seem to communicate to Adelaide what he needs of her, the steers dodging neatly past him as he twists and curses. ‘What’s the matter with you, you useless shavetail,’ yells the boss, appearing suddenly behind him. ‘Use your goddamn rope.’ Goodnight knows he has no more chance of roping a steer than of lifting one bodily off its feet, and he’s about to say so, but the man’s already charged off after another steer. 

It’s odd that everyone else seems so much more competent than him, but even if they’re in with a more experienced group today, he doesn’t appreciate such open criticism: he’ll certainly be having a word with Jack when he shows up. Still, the advice is sound, and for now, even if he can’t rope the cows he can at least extend his reach, and he does a little better flicking the rope out to deter would-be mavericks. 

 

By mid-morning Goodnight’s exhausted, though no one else gives any indication of stopping; eventually he pulls up his horse to mop at his brow and ease his back and thighs. Billy comes galloping up out of the dust, his horse blowing. ‘Something wrong?’ he asks. 

‘Just catching a breath,’ says Goodnight. ‘Thought we’d have taken a proper break by now.’ 

‘A break?’ The familiar look of combined amusement and exasperation is back on Billy’s face under its coating of dust. ‘You’ve been slacking all morning – I’ve been doing double trying to catch all the strays you missed, waving your rope round like a washerwoman.’ 

‘Be fair,’ says Goodnight, ‘you know my true skills lie elsewhere,’ and Billy lightens into a grin. 

‘Could shoot Wetherall, that would do us all a favour. Now get moving before we lose our place.’ And he dashes away as the next man in line begins cursing them out from behind. _Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?_

It’s not just the heat, though he’s sweating freely: it’s the choking dust and the unceasing noise – bellowing cattle, shouts and cracks of whips, the thunder of hooves, the sheer relentlessness of the work. The camaraderie that they’d developed over the week’s practice seems to have evaporated: the riders around him are impersonal and impatient, and the boss – Wetherall? – charges up and down the line yelling indiscriminate curses. By the time the sun’s high and they finally call a halt, Goodnight’s temper has worn as thin as the seat of his pants. This is just uncalled-for: Jack needs to take some of his assistants in hand, explain to them the principle of paying guests. 

He slides down from the saddle, a little shaky on his legs. The real experience of being on a trail drive, working as a cowhand in the Old West – OK, he gets it: he’s tired, dirty and hungry. Long past time to slap each other on the back and take it easy. But there’s no organised lunch stop, nowhere to wash, no riverbank to laze on, and no trailer with a load of coolers and a cheerful assistant to unload them. The other hands, and he doesn’t recognise any of them, not Brent nor Téo nor Alice, have gathered in the sparse shade under a stand of trees, reaching for canteens and pulling out packets from their coats. Should he join them? It’s hardly inviting. 

Billy comes up beside him leading his horse and jerks his head. ‘Over here.’ The two of them find a spot a little distance away where the horses can stand in the shade, ears flicking at the flies. Goodnight takes off his hat and fans himself with it. ‘Never worked so hard in my life.’ 

Billy smirks. ‘Not news to me. Here.’ He’s holding out a strip of dark stringy meat. ‘You got the canteen?’ 

Goodnight’s shoulders sag. ‘Beef jerky and lukewarm water? I thought Jack was joking.’ Nevertheless he takes the meat and chews on a bite experimentally. _How long are they going to keep this up?_

Billy’s frowning. ‘Who’s Jack?’ 

Goodnight frowns at him in turn. ‘Jack, you know, runs the ranch.’ 

‘Wetherall,’ says Billy indistinctly, ‘is that his name?’ 

‘Huh?’ Goodnight’s jaw is beginning to ache as much as the rest of him. ‘Cher, are you really OK with how this is going?’ 

Billy crams the rest of the jerky into his mouth. ‘Job’s a job,’ he says around it. ‘Tougher than we usually do, but it’s worth it.’ 

‘Guess so,’ says Goodnight, unconvinced. He looks at the rest of the jerky dubiously. ‘Hunger may be the best sauce, but I’m not hungry enough for this.’ 

‘Give it here, then.’ Billy takes the meat and applies himself to it with appetite while Goodnight takes a swig from the canteen, the water now unpleasantly warm and tinny. He pats his vest pockets. Where are his smokes? He runs his fingers over the small pocket, but there’s no bump of his pill box either. _Didn’t think I’d taken it out…_

He glances at Billy, wondering, but he’s gulping the last of the water. He tilts it up for the final few drops, then stiffens, attention focusing over Goodnight’s shoulder: Goodnight looks round to see Wetherall stalking over towards them. 

His surly expression brings Goodnight’s resentment flooding back, but before he can so much as open his mouth the man’s stabbing a finger at him. ‘You! You’re as much use as tits on a bull!’ 

‘Who the hell-‘ starts Goodnight, outraged, but Wetherall bulls over him. 'Dressed up like you’re Abraham Lincoln, prancing about like it’s a month in the country, and letting your Chinaman do the work for you.’ His gaze rakes down him scornfully. ‘If you don’t get your head out of your fancy ass and work like you’re paid for, I’ll can you both.’ 

‘Screw you, you little shit,’ bellows Goodnight, temper instantly boiling over, ‘I don’t have to put up with some out-of-work actor letting method go to his head; how dare you speak to us like that!’ 

Wetherall’s momentarily rocked on his heels by the tirade, but then he muscles forward into Goodnight’s space. ‘I’m the one paying the wages here, asshole! I’ll speak how I want and you’ll say, _Yessir_.’ 

The other hands are gathering, attracted by the show: Goodnight takes a step forward until he’s nose to nose with Wetherall. ‘This is completely unaccept-…’ he hisses, but Billy steps up behind him and somehow his arm is in a painful twist. 

‘We’re not looking to start trouble,’ Billy says, face carefully neutral. 

‘Don’t seem like it to me,’ snarls Wetherall, ‘if I didn’t need a full crew you’d be out on your asses, the both of you.’ 

‘Won’t happen again,’ says Billy tautly; Wetherall’s scowl turns to a jeering smile. ‘Thought he kept you round to wash his clothes, but looks like you’re the boss and he’s the servant!’ 

Billy’s face doesn’t move as laughter bursts around them, but he pulls Goodnight away hard enough to make him stagger. ‘Stick his head in the horsetrough and see if that brings him to his senses,’ calls Wetherall after them. 

 

Billy drags him away, hand still vicelike on his arm. ‘What is the _matter_ with you?’ he grits. 

Goodnight knows that white cold anger and it stokes his rage on Billy’s behalf. ‘He’s a shit,’ he spits, then, seeing Billy’s expression, ‘Don’t worry, cher, Horne will have him out of here so fast his ass will catch fire. I’m heading straight back to town to find him.’ 

Billy stares at him uncomprehending, then his face changes and he masters himself in a deliberate act of control. ‘Goody.’ He puts his hands on his shoulders. ‘You’ve been acting odd all day.’ He brushes Goodnight’s hat off and tilts his head up, running a hand over his brow. ‘You’re confused: you do remember where we are?’ 

Goodnight’s anger abates at his look of concern, and he lets his shoulders fall. ‘I’m fine. Just tired. And hot. And angry. Don’t know how you’re managing to take it in your stride.’ 

He reaches out, intending to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Billy’s ear, but as he does so, he realises to his horror that his ring finger is bare, nothing but a band of white against the tan. ‘My ring!’ 

How could he not have noticed? It must have come off, and in his mind’s eye he sees it happen: it’s almost as though he felt it come loose as the rope ran through his hands, saw the glint of gold as it spun away. He looks back the way they’ve come, and despair washes over him at the trail of churned earth behind them. It’s been miles: they’ll never find it again. 

‘What?’ asks Billy, and Goodnight turns to face him, distraught. ‘My ring, cher. It’s gone.’ He holds out his hand in demonstration. ‘Do you think it’s worth riding back to look? Just in case we can find it? I mean, I know it’s just a ring, but…’ 

Goodnight tries to will himself to calm. He shouldn’t overreact: accidents happen, and it’s just a ring, it can be replaced; Billy will slide the new one on as he did the first… 

Billy takes hold of Goodnight’s arms, steadying as ever. ‘I don’t know what ring you’re talking about, Goody. You’ve got to snap out of this.’ 

Goodnight stares at him, confounded: ‘My wedding ring.’ 

Billy meets his gaze, equally baffled. ‘You don’t have a wedding ring.’ 

‘But I do, you know I do,’ protests Goodnight helplessly. ‘You gave it to me.’ 

He goes to lay his head on Billy’s shoulder, but Billy stiffens and pushes him back. ‘What are you doing? You know we can’t-’ There’s real anxiety in his face; but more than that, close to, really looking at him, he seems different, his skin more weathered, the lines on his face deeper, a closed, wary expression on his face that’s harder than anything Goodnight’s used to seeing. Goodnight almost reaches out to touch a faded scar on his jaw, but stops himself. Billy doesn’t have a scar. 

 

He sits down, legs giving way beneath him, and scrubs his hands over his face. It’s as though – but no, that’s a crazy idea: Jack’s conceit, playing tricks with his mind. 

_What if_ – what if, somehow, this is the past? The real past, when Ezekiel’s Crossing was a living town, and him woken up into the life they were pretending to live? Even as he contemplates it, he knows it’s absurd: it’s got to be the effect that the vacation was trying to create, working on a susceptible mind. And Billy’s here, so how can it be any time but now? _But_ , prompts his mind, _where are the others? Sam, and the women, and Horne and Red Harvest: where are they?_ If it’s all a big joke at his expense, then everyone must be in on it, Billy too, and Billy wouldn’t do something like that, would he, see him confused and anxious? 

Billy squats down beside him, two cigarettes between his lips; he holds a match to them, then offers one to Goodnight, who takes it automatically, the bite of the tobacco helping him to focus a little. ‘Can you get through the afternoon?’ he asks quietly. 

‘Guess so,’ says Goodnight vaguely. He’s tempted just to ride off, back to town, but what if it’s still as strange as in the morning? Billy’s his one constant: better to stay with him. 

‘Just till sundown,’ says Billy. ‘I’ll pick up the slack as much as I can.’ 

Goodnight looks up at him, full of self-reproach. ‘Not much use to you, am I?’ 

‘You have your redeeming qualities,’ smiles Billy, and Goodnight smiles back, everything as it should be again, _how could I be so idiotic?_ But when Goodnight takes his arm to get up, reality lurches again: Billy’s strong, his muscles well-defined, and he doesn’t carry much fat. But the arm under his hand is pure sinew, hard under the skin, not an ounce of fat on him; he stands staring again until Billy nudges his shoulder. ‘Just do what you can.’ 

And then – then it hits him with an absolute certitude: this isn’t Billy. Well, it is, but not his Billy: this is a different Billy, an old-time Billy who belongs here, who looks the same – except he has a scar where he shouldn’t – and acts the same – except he’s a real cowboy, not a pretend one. _He calls me Goody. He looks out for me. We sleep in the same bed. But he’s not Billy._

 

Goodnight mounts up again, head reeling, and looks around him, really looks, for the first time. He’s never met any of these men before, and none of them can be a vacationer; they’re weatherworn working men, faces serious and clothes stained with dirt and sweat. Everyone this morning was dressed like a re-enactor, but there was no self-consciousness about it, no sense that reality was threatening to break the illusion. There was no bathroom. But it can’t be. _You don’t just wake up in the past_.

In some ways the afternoon’s work, relentless though it is, comes as a relief: the job is struggle enough, trying to direct and control his part of the moving herd, that it’s impossible to dwell on everything that’s wrong. He’s uncomfortably aware that Billy on the line behind him is doing one and a half day’s work, but the only time they might have talked, when they halt at a tiny creek to water their horses, Goodnight can do no more than gulp from the canteen to soothe his parched throat and fight down his rising tide of panic. 

Eventually, out of a haze of dust and ache and heat and confusion, the stock pens appear and the cattle are herded in lowing and shoving. Goodnight’s shaking with exhaustion, and he’s grateful that Adelaide needs to instruction from him to follow Billy as Wetherall gathers them to issue curt instructions. ‘Same again tomorrow – we’ll move the next cut through, so be back at Fire Ridge by sun-up.’ 

If this is acting, no one’s breaking character for a moment: the others turn their mounts away, slapping each other on the back with muttered jokes, and Wetherall fixes him with a contemptuous glare. ‘I’ll expect a real day’s work from you: make sure your manservant gets you up on time tomorrow.’ 

Even in his harried state Goodnight’s not going to let that pass; he sucks in an angry breath, but Billy cuts in with a perfectly neutral, ‘We’ll be there.’ 

Wetherall snorts, wrenches his horse’s head around and rides off after the others; Goodnight turns to Billy, who shrugs. ‘C’mon, hot food and a drink.’

It seems impossible, the idea of getting back to town after the distance they’ve covered, but when he mumbles something to that effect Billy laughs and points: the storefronts are already visible over the horizon. ‘We’ve looped around it; that’s why we’re not out on the range.’ 

 

Away from the drive hope surges again, because here he is, riding beside Billy along a road he knows, back to the town: they’ll get there and it’ll be like the first night, the joke will be out and there’ll be a shower and a proper dinner, and perhaps Billy will make things up with a massage for his aching hip. 

He shifts in the saddle, trying vainly to ease his back and thighs, relaxing as they pass the familiar sign. Everything’s as it should be: there’s the boarding-house, and the saloon, and the bank – was there a bank? He’s suddenly unsure. A wagon with a load of sacks comes trundling past them, hauled by a patient ox; three boys squat in the dust outside the schoolhouse playing jacks. Were there children here? Could the staff have brought their children along to play a role? His head thumps. He wants his suspicions to be stupid, fantastical, but the more he sees, the less he’s convinced. Billy seems unconcerned, but Goodnight’s aware he’s watching anxiously from the corner of his eye: it’s a look he knows. 

Is it really – when? When were they driving cattle here? 1860? He’s not even sure about that. He can’t ask, make himself look even more of a fool, and he doesn’t know whether he wants to, or if he wants to cling to the thinning shreds of his conviction that this is a trick got seriously out of hand. 

At the stables he climbs down from the saddle, back cramping; he could lie down right here on the straw to rest, but _Horse is your first priority_ , he hears Jack say, and he pushes himself through the routine of untacking and grooming, limping a little on his right leg. He strokes Adelaide’s nose: ‘You’ve been so patient and I’ve been so useless,’ he tells her softly. 

Billy puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bathhouse.’ 

‘Food first,’ says Goodnight; he can’t remember ever being this ravenous, but Billy halts in front of the low building. ‘You were worked up enough about it this morning. Won’t take long, then we can eat.’ 

He slides some coins across the counter to a balding man in a canvas apron and leads the way inside. The bathhouse is mercifully empty, though the echoing room with its spartan line of tin tubs isn’t what he expected: weren’t they trying to sell this as a spa experience? It’s just one more layer of confusion. 

He follows Billy meekly behind a wooden partition and sits on a bench to pull off his boots. ‘Should have got clean clothes, for after.’ 

Billy pauses in stripping off his gloves to look at him patiently. ‘No point changing until Saturday, we can get everything washed before we go.’ 

Goodnight tugs tiredly at his clothes, to the sound of clanking and pouring water; now he’s here the idea of sluicing off the grit and soaking his sore muscles is tempting. Billy does the same, then comes to stand over him, hand outstretched with a tired grin. 

‘C’mon while it’s…’ He trails off abruptly, eyes running over Goodnight’s body with a look of disbelief and dismay, and as Goodnight takes him in, another lurching shift in perspective unbalances him. He knows Billy’s body as well as he knows his own, has stroked and kissed and licked every inch of his golden skin, has traced with his lips the scar of a childhood operation on his belly and the tiny tattoo on his shoulder. 

But the Billy standing in front of him is wind- and sunburnt, strong as corded rope, his skin dotted with scars that Goodnight’s never seen. He has no tattoo, though there’s the mark of what’s obviously a healed bullet wound where it should be. And Billy can’t seem to tear his gaze from Goodnight, smooth and unmarked except for his hip and side, where the scars run white and ridged. His hand falls to his side. ‘How…?’ 

He looks at him searchingly, and Goodnight husks, ‘Billy.’ 

Instead of answering Billy turns his back, the warmth gone from his tone. ‘Water’s ready.’ 

_Ready_ seems to mean barely hot, and just enough of it to scrub; though the tubs are side by side Billy washes without looking at him, making quick work of it. Goodnight soaps and rinses himself off, sneaking worried glances, but Billy’s face is set: neither of them attempts conversation.

 

Coming out of the bathhouse into the twilight Goodnight looks around, willing himself to rationality. The skinny dog, nosing about under the sidewalk. The well, where a woman turns a squeaking handle. The handwritten sign in the window of the General Store, _Our scales are square_. If it’s a hallucination or a lucid dream it doesn’t feel like it: he can feel the fine grit in the creases of his pants, the cooling breeze in his damp hair, hear the echo of their boots on the wooden boards and smell the woodsmoke curling upwards from stovepipes. It’s too good, too sustained to be a deception: he’s here, in the past. With a Billy who isn’t the man he knows, doing a job he barely understands. 

Back upstairs in the boarding-house Goodnight gets a rush of relief when the door closes behind them: this at least is familiar and right, the brass bedstead, the basin on the chest and the text on the wall, though the sheets are still tangled from the morning and the cold scummed washing water not emptied. He can’t resist opening the cupboard again to check, but inside are still just shallow empty shelves. Billy’s voice behind him is harsh. ‘Where’s Goodnight?’ 

It’s horrible, seeing Billy regarding him with outright hostility, like a stranger. ‘I am Goodnight,’ he says quietly. 

Billy’s stare is cold and his tone doesn’t waver. ‘No, you’re not. You’re like him, but you’re not. I thought you were just having a very bad day, but the scars – he doesn’t have those.’ His taut calm is menacing. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but talk fast.’ 

Goodnight raises his hands, helpless again. What can he possibly say? He closes his eyes, spinning without compass, unmoored from the world as his last point of contact with reality slips through his hands. ‘I am him. Just…’ The nightmarish feeling is making him sick to his stomach, but he lifts his chin and looks at the man he knows and loves. ‘I’m Ellison Goodnight Robicheaux, born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I’m forty-five years old, and I was born…’ He licks his lips. ‘In 1968.’ 

There’s a click, and he sees what he would never have thought possible: Billy raising a gun. ‘Try again.’ 

He’s trembling with tension and he thinks he sees a tremor in Billy’s hand too. ‘I know it sounds crazy. But we were here, me and Billy. In Ezekiel’s Crossing. We were on vacation. I went to sleep with him, here in this room, yesterday. And this morning I woke up here with you – I thought you were him, you’re so alike, but then today, when I looked close … and the scars…’ He sucks in a breath to steady his shaking voice. 

‘You just woke up here? What kind of story is that?’ Billy watches him flatly, the barrel of the gun unwavering. ‘You’re – some relation of his, a brother or a cousin. Spinning a crazy story to cover up what you’ve done. Though why … if you want him home, why not just take him?’ 

‘You’d come after me,’ says Goodnight automatically. ‘You wouldn’t just let anyone take me.’ 

Billy jumps to his feet and grabs his arm, putting them nose to nose. ‘Where is he?’  
It’s supposed to sound threatening, but so close, Billy’s just so familiar: Goodnight has to fight himself not to lean into his touch, and he can see from the uncertainty in Billy’s face that he feels the same. 

He looks into his eyes. ‘You’re my husband, we were married three years ago. After I finished college in Lafayette I moved out to the West Coast. Thought I was going to be a writer, had big ambitions… But I was in an accident. That’s where-‘ He gestures at his hip. ‘Took me a long time to recover, and a lot of things didn’t seem the same. But it was how I met you.’ 

By the end of his story Billy’s hand with the gun has dropped to his side and he looks dazed. ‘I want to say you’re out of your head, don’t know where you are or who you are, but’ - a touch lingers on his hip. ‘He doesn’t have these.’ 

Goodnight swallows. This is the question that’s been gnawing at him all day. ‘What year is it?’ 

‘1876,’ says Billy. They hold each other’s gaze in silence, then Goodnight says, ‘2016, for me.’ 

‘But…’ Billy blows out a breath and sits down again, gun forgotten in his hand. ‘If I believe you … you’re him, I can tell you are, and you’re not. How can there be two of you?’ 

Goodnight shakes his head. ‘You know it’s the truth, I can tell you do.’ 

‘Then where’s Goody?’ That’s a question which simply hasn’t occurred to him. 

‘I don’t know. I just woke up here.’ As he says it, a light seems to flick on in his brain. ‘My guess,’ he says, and he’s suddenly sure of it, ‘is that he’s in the future. With Billy, here in Ezekiel’s Crossing, as it is now. He must be. We were here, being cowboys, on vacation. I mean, it’s like a film set …’ Billy’s expression tells him he isn’t making sense and he gropes for a way to explain it. 

‘We were playing at it, playing at living like in the past. When this was a real town, when the droves were still going on. Me and Billy and the rest of us, we learnt how to be cowboys, and then came to make believe that we were.’ Shame creeps over him at the expression on Billy’s face. 

‘You paid money to come and live like this?’ He can see he doesn’t believe it, and who would? 

‘Riding, herding, drinking in the saloon: except with …’ 

‘With what?’ He’s sharp, patience clearly wearing thin. 

Goodnight can’t think of any other way to say it. ‘Hot water and proper bathrooms and decent food.’ 

Billy shrugs. ‘So you woke up here, and Goody’s playing at being a cowhand a hundred years from now.’ It’s sarcastic, but in the face of Goodnight’s mute despair he softens again. ‘This is crazy: every time you say something, every time you look at me, I know you’re Goody, but you’re not. And you can’t shoot, can’t ride…’ 

‘I do have other skills,’ says Goodnight, nettled in spite of himself. 

‘That’s what I mean,’ says Billy, and finally there’s the hint of a smile. 

Goodnight reaches out a hand, but doesn’t bridge the gap between them. ‘I know. You’re Billy. Your voice, the way you move, your expression: you say the same things.’ 

They’ve run themselves dry: Goodnight sits down beside him on the bed and they stare at each other. Eventually Billy runs his fingers through his hair and says, ‘Maybe we’ve both just been out in the sun too long. Maybe we’ve been drugged.’ 

‘I hope so,’ says Goodnight. Now the crisis is over, he remembers how hungry he is. ‘Look, I don’t pretend to understand, and I hope I’ll just – snap out of it again and everything will be like it should, but I’m here, and if I haven’t woken up after a day like that then I’m not going to. And if we can’t make more sense of things, at least we don’t have to go hungry. So can we get something to eat?’ 

 

Downstairs the Diamondback is packed full, tables and bar crowded and noise all round them, boots stamping, shouts of laughter and bursts of song. While Billy goes to fetch food and drink Goodnight takes the time to look around attentively; all the customers are men, the only women some underdressed girls wandering from table to table. People are dirty, sweatstained, grime in the creases of their hands and neck; they smell. Men are chewing tobacco and spitting. If it’s a putup, some kind of giant conspiracy to fool him, it’s perfect in every detail. 

He grabs the glass Billy puts down in front of him, gulping the liquor down: it’s terrible, harsh and sour. He pulls a face. ‘Is this actually whisky?’ 

Billy pulls out a chair. ‘Best not to ask, that’s what you always tell me.’ 

‘No wonder everyone throws it down so quick.’ He does the same, one glass after another, the spreading warmth of the alcohol a sensation he can cling to, and when the food arrives he’s hungry enough that even beans in a floury sauce with a few scraps of pork looks appetising. 

Billy watches him approvingly as he forks up his own. ‘Day’s work tends to have that effect.’ 

When he pauses to take a break, Goodnight scans the room again, but he doubts he’d recognise any of the hands from today if he saw them. ‘That Wetherall – he really the boss?’ 

‘Yep.’ There’s no real accusation in the reply, but Goodnight feels it anyway. 

‘I’d say I’m sorry for yelling at him, but he deserves it. I mean, for being an asshole generally, but the way he kept talking to you. I made it all worse, I know, but it’s terrible.’ 

Billy shrugs. ‘Complaining won’t help.’ 

Goodnight feels his cheeks flush at the memory of the shame he caused. ‘But he shouldn’t get away with…’ _1876_. He looks round the room again. The only women here are very clearly whores in skimpy bedraggled finery, accepting the slaps and groping of the customers without complaint. Everyone he can see is white, apart from Billy and one of the men bringing food from the kitchen; he hasn’t seen a Native anywhere. Seems like Jack’s optimism was a little misplaced: he offers a silent apology to Sam, Billy and Red collectively. 

‘Shooting him’s tempting, but you said the money’s good?’ 

Billy nods, mopping up his plate with a crust. ‘Enough to make it worthwhile. It’s not what we usually do.’ 

‘It’s not? I thought we were cowhands.’ 

‘Have you looked in a mirror?’ smirks Billy. And it’s true, Goodnight’s much more fancily dressed than most of the men he’s seen; he doesn’t look like a working man. And then Billy with all those knives… 

‘So what do we do? Am I a gambler and you’re my protection?’ Even as he smiles he hears the strange echo.

‘Sometimes,’ says Billy seriously. ‘Mostly we make our money from fights.’ 

‘Fights?’ Goodnight struggles to keep his voice low. 

Billy looks at him. ‘Not prizefights – well, sometimes. Shooting contests, mostly. I can outdraw anyone, but they never believe it. People will bet against me.’ 

‘I let you do that?’ Goodnight’s appalled: Billy fighting for a living, all those scars… 

‘No.’ Billy’s face has gone dark. ‘You don’t let me do it. I let you help me.’ 

Goodnight holds up his hands. ‘This is none of my–‘ 

‘You really don’t know much, do you?’ 

Seeing Billy, his one true constant, looking at him with that flat hostility again, the disorientation and panic he’s been suppressing finally burn through his control. ‘Of course I don’t. I’m on vacation, fooling about on a ranch for two weeks, pretending to be a cowboy with a bunch of other over-indulged middle-class city types. I spend my day sitting on my ass at a computer, and when my husband comes home we cook dinner and watch TV. Maybe if I was Sam Chisolm I’d have more idea how to live in the 1870s, but I’m-‘ 

‘If you were Sam Chisolm?’ interrupts Billy urgently. ‘You know Sam?’ 

‘Of course I do,’ snaps Goodnight, ‘I met him last week, we both did, he’s a nice guy–‘ 

Billy’s gone still. ‘Sam Chisolm is your best friend. You told me you owe him your life.’ 

‘I _what?_ ’ asks Goodnight, astonished. Just when he thinks he’s found a footing, the floor gives way beneath his feet again. 

‘You met him after the war, spent a year working together. Bounty-hunting. He’s a warrant officer.’ 

‘He’s a high-school history teacher,’ says Goodnight faintly. _Another Sam? And Goodnight’s his best friend?_ He shoves his glass forward with a shaking hand: he doesn’t think there’s enough drink in the world for this. ‘What’s bounty-hunting?’

 

It’s a relief when everything turns into a haze and he finds himself with an arm over Billy’s shoulders to help him make it back up the stairs. Neither of them can seem to maintain the distance that they should: it’s just so easy to ignore the little jarring notes and lean into the comforting intimacy. Billy helps him off with his boots, then with a tsk of irritation, his vest with its fiddly chain, then strips down himself to his shirt to sleep. 

He slides under the covers, carefully on the far edge of the bed, and on a reflex Goodnight grazes his fingers over his shoulder. ‘Sleep well, cher.’ 

Billy rolls over to face him, face alight with hope. ‘Goody?’ 

Goodnight wants nothing more than to reach out to him, see him smile for real, but, ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean … I just always …’ 

Billy scrutinises him, gaze flicking from one eye to the other. ‘So does he,’ he says at last. ‘Just that way,’ then he rolls over, turning his back. 

Goodnight lies down again; the sheets smell stale and unwashed, the bed is lumpy and the pillow thin; he’s tense, lying in bed with a man he both does and doesn’t know. _Is the other Goodnight lying down next to my Billy? Or have I just disappeared? Is there a manhunt?_ Sleep is the last thing he thinks he’ll do, but it comes rushing up like a wave to claim him.


	3. Chapter 3

Surfacing slowly out of sleep Goodnight stretches against the familiar weight next to him, scenting clean cotton, sandalwood soap and the slight musk of the night: _Billy_. He rolls over, throwing an arm across his waist and buries his face against the back of his neck, breathing him in and lets himself slip back towards sleep, warm and relaxed. 

He wakes again with the sun bright on his face and jerks upright, setting the brass bedstead jingling; Billy stirs awake beside him. 

‘Have we missed breakfast?’ he asks in confusion. 

‘Of course not,’ says Billy, stretching luxuriously. ‘Come back here,’ and Goodnight slides back down into his embrace to trade sleepy kisses. 

After a while Billy rolls him over playfully and Goodnight can’t stop an involuntary hiss of pain as his hip twinges. _Too much riding yesterday: that louse Wetherall kept us at it from dawn to dusk… But no, that was a dream, wasn’t it?_ He frowns, struggling to unpick what’s real and what isn’t. 

‘What’s wrong?’ Billy asks, looking down at him in concern. 

Goodnight puts a hand on his cheek, gazing at him in the light filtering round the curtain. Soft skin, a little sunburnt, but smooth; just the beginning of fine lines at eye and mouth; clean hair, tumbled from the night; a familiar worn T-shirt. Goodnight exhales, dropping his head back onto the pillow. ‘I had the oddest dream.’

It’s still so vivid. ‘It was this whole long dream, that I was in the past. Here, but like it was in the old days, and we were cowboys, both of us … and I knew I was in the wrong time, like you do, and I kept trying to explain it….’ Billy’s still looking concerned, and Goodnight shakes his head. ‘Doesn’t matter, cher, it was just a dream. Though my hip feels as though I really was in the saddle all day.’ 

‘Let me.’ Billy sits up, throwing the covers off, and begins a firm massage to his right leg that’s exactly right, and Goodnight lets himself go boneless in relief, face-down in the pillows. 

‘Just there. Thank you, sweetheart.’ 

‘Hardly surprising you dreamed it, though, after yesterday’s act.’ 

‘Huh?’ Goodnight lifts his head, twisting awkwardly to look at Billy. 

Billy nudges at him. ‘Pretending you were a real old-timer. I thought you’d have to drop it eventually, but you kept it up right to the end.’ 

Goodnight’s confused all over again. ‘Yesterday? I wasn’t pret– I mean, it had me going for a while, like everyone else, but once we settled in –' 

Billy sits back on his heels, brow creasing. ‘That was Sunday.’ 

‘Yesterday,’ agrees Goodnight. He can’t understand why Billy looks so disturbed. 

‘Today’s Tuesday.’ 

Goodnight stares at him, bewildered. That can’t be right. He remembers coming here, settling in, the night in the saloon _… and I dreamed a whole day, dawn to dusk …_

Billy slides up the bed to put a gentle hand on his arm, in professional doctor mode, and Goodnight’s stomach wobbles. ‘You don’t remember yesterday?’ 

It was just a dream, that’s the only rational explanation, but now Billy’s saying there’s a whole day he doesn’t remember? ‘What happened?’ It feels so wrong, to have to ask, and Billy’s troubled expression makes it worse. 

‘We went out, with Abbie and Mariah and the others, to do the herding, though you said it wasn’t real work. We ate by the river, then in the afternoon we rode out on our own. And in the evening’ – why doesn’t any of this seem familiar? – ‘we had dinner with the others. You really threw yourself into it, telling stories like we were in the old West and being gallant to the girls.’ 

Goodnight stares at him, groping for any sense that he’s making it up. ‘I don’t remember any of that.’ How can he have lost a whole day? 

He gets off the bed to draw the curtain and look out, head spinning: everything down in the street is just as it should be – a group of riders are heading out, shirts bright in the sun, and a four-by-four with a trailer drives off in a cloud of pale dust. From behind him Billy says softly, ‘I thought … you weren’t like yourself. But you were … enjoying it all so much … I thought…’ 

Goodnight grits his teeth. ‘You can say it. You thought I was taking the pills again.’ 

Billy comes up behind him, slipping his arms around his waist. ‘I’m not blaming you. We can get thr-‘ 

Goodnight hunches away, dazed. ‘But I’m not. I’ve got some, but I haven’t…’ He sits down again, and Billy sits next to him, a tentative arm across his shoulders. ‘I don’t remember any of what you say we did yesterday. What I remember is my dream. It wasn’t just bits and pieces, one thing turning into the next: it was like I lived through a whole day, minute by minute. The boss yelled at us, and we had to work like dogs; then we went to the bathhouse…’ 

He suddenly remembers and jumps up to cross the room, yanking open the door to the bathroom. It’s just as it should be, shower and basin, tiles and shining taps. Billy comes to stand beside him, and Goodnight says, ‘It wasn’t there; it was just a cupboard.’ 

‘Goody, can you hear how you sound-‘ 

He can, of course he can, standing at the door to the bathroom insisting it wasn’t there, but a creeping conviction is starting to prickle between his shoulderblades. ‘It was as though,’ he begins, and it’s so ludicrous that he can’t even suggest it. He tries again. ‘The town, here, it was alive and then it died, and now it’s been brought back to life again.’ 

Billy nods. ‘When we came in, it was as though we’d stepped back into the past.’ 

‘And it was like I really did. Everything was the same, because it was still here, in this town. But it was all happening like it used to.’ He turns to Billy, lifting a hand to his cheek. ‘And you were there too, but a different you, like you but not. They were us, Goodnight and Billy together, but then; making a living herding cows. I was hopeless, trying to keep up: Billy had to cover for me all the time.’ The memory’s as sharp as the ache in his hip.

Billy draws him gently back to the bed, and Goodnight shrinks at the anxiety written on his face. ‘You’re not seriously trying to claim that you were really in the past? That you travelled in time?’ Goodnight puts his head in his hands and Billy rubs his back. ‘First, that’s absurd, and second, you were here, all day. Talking and working and drinking; everyone saw you.’ 

Goodnight raises his head. ‘But that’s just it. Billy asked me, where his Goodnight had gone – he thought I’d kidnapped him. And I said, _He’s in the future, with Billy_.’ 

Billy looks hopelessly confused, and Goodnight can’t blame him. ‘I don’t understand any of this. First you were pretending to be someone else, and now you’re saying you weren’t you at all, but a different you from the past. It’s crazy.’ 

It is: hearing it said aloud makes Goodnight feel idiotic, and he leans up against Billy for comfort. ‘I know. It must have been – a fugue state? A lucid dream?’ He closes his eyes, suddenly lost and adrift.

‘We’ll go,’ says Billy decisively. ‘If you’re not feeling right. Get someone to drive us back to the ranch and book a flight from there.’ 

‘No.’ The force of his refusal comes as a surprise: the thought of leaving, of not knowing, is impossible to countenance. ‘I’m not sick, no need to make a commotion and rush off.’ 

Billy puts a hand on the back of his neck. ‘If you’ve had a day you don’t remember, a fugue episode, it’s serious: you need to get checked over.’ 

Goodnight smiles. ‘Got a doctor right here.’ 

‘Not that kind of doctor.’ He knows at heart that Billy’s right, but there’s something here to test, to understand… 

‘I feel fine now.’ He looks into Billy’s eyes, rueful. ‘Mind playing tricks on me isn’t new, we know that.’ 

‘Goody…’ Billy pulls him into a hug, and Goodnight rests his head on his shoulder for a while, more dependent than he can help, then straightens up. 

‘Look.’ He gets up to fetches his vest from where it’s hanging over the back of the chair, reaching into the little pocket. ‘Take these.’ The square metal box sits on the bedcover between them like an accusation. ‘Haven’t had any, but this way if I do, you’ll know.’ 

‘This isn’t…’ Billy’s fingers close over his wrist, relief and worry at war in his face. ‘I don’t want to be your-‘ Goodnight pushes the box towards him mutely until he relents, picks it up and leans over to drop it into his case. ‘You can change your mind,’ he tells him; the lines of tension are back in his face, and Goodnight feels a stab of guilt. 

‘I’m sorry, cher,’ he says. ‘Not much of a vacation for you when I’m acting so strange.’ 

Billy softens. ‘Just tell me if you feel odd again.’ 

‘I will,’ promises Goodnight, then with determined cheerfulness, ‘C’mon. We’re still on vacation, and that means there’s work to do.’

 

It would be the easiest thing, to let it all be just a dream, to put it down to a suggestible imagination and his problems of the past; now he’s said it he can almost persuade himself. But as Billy heads to the bathroom Goodnight unobstrusively slips onto his finger the ring that he found nestled beside the pillbox in his vest pocket, the ring he never takes off, its metal cold against the heat of his skin. 

There are rational explanations he could find: I took it off because I was playing a part, or because I was confused, didn’t know what I was doing. But he remembers so vividly his despair when he thought it lost on the cattle drive, and the lurching realisation that followed when Billy hadn’t known what he was talking about. _And of course,_ says his mind, _the other Goodnight would have been as anxious as Billy was, he wouldn’t wear a wedding ring in public; he took it off and tucked it away next to his heart._

 

Being here now is the strangest mixture of reassuringly normal and jarringly strange: Goodnight strips off his T-shirt to get into the shower and it’s pure pleasure, hot water pummelling his aching muscles. He emerges in a puff of steam and sandalwood to dry himself off with a thick towel and fish in his case for a clean shirt and underwear; but as he does a piercing memory stops him in his tracks – Billy, dirty in the grey morning, pulling on clothes still stained from yesterday’s work, heading out for a day’s labour, sunrise to sunset. _It was so real._

By the time they get downstairs they’re the only guests in the dining-room, but the staff don’t seem at all put out by their tardiness, and there’s plenty of food left – fresh muffins, trays of eggs sausage and bacon, and platters of fruit. As he serves himself Goodnight’s struck with a new appreciation: so much good fresh food, more than anyone could wish to eat. He piles his plate high with golden hash browns, two fried eggs with lacy brown edges, crisp bacon, sausage and hot toast, but as he sets it down on the wooden tabletop the echo of yesterday floods him with shame again at the memory of Billy bent hungrily over his plate at this same table, facing a hard day on a burnt biscuit and undercooked bacon. But no, even as guilt curdles his stomach, there’s Billy right beside him, setting down a bowl with fat slices of melon and peach, saying, ‘Fuel up for the day.’ It’s constantly disorienting, past and present overlaying one another as though it’s all happening at once. 

He’s too distracted to chatter as he normally would, but Billy doesn’t press him, and the leisurely eating is calming: one or two of the ranch hands come in to grab coffee, their faces comfortingly familiar, and as he and Billy are sitting over their own third cups, legs tangled gently under the table, Jack appears, surveying the room with an air of approval. 

‘Come to round up your lazy hands?’ asks Goodnight, feeling as though he’s been caught in wrong-doing. 

Jack laughs, expansive as ever. ‘Didn’t expect you to be up and doing early after last night. You come and join us when you’re ready.’ And he chats to the staff in his soft voice as he loads up a plate with the last of the hot food.

‘Last night?’ Goodnight turns to Billy, and at his expression reaches for his hand. 'I’m sorry, cher.’ 

‘You really don’t remember any of it?’ Goodnight searches his memory, but all he can come up with is being in the saloon with Billy, in a crowd of hard-drinking men. ‘You were holding court in the saloon,’ says Billy now, ‘you were pretty drunk by the end.’ 

‘I was?’ Goodnight thinks: he doesn’t feel hung over. Just sore, and stiff, and anxious. 

Billy nods. ‘You didn’t like it when I said you were overdoing it.’ 

‘I make a fool of myself?’ 

Billy seems to relax a little at that. ‘No, everyone loved it. You were spinning stories, had this whole scenario where we were all out in the West earning a living: you said I was a professional fighter, could throw a knife like no one’s business, and Jack was a famous mountain man.’ 

‘Seriously?’ asks Goodnight, seeing again Billy casually buckling on his belt of knives. 

‘And Sam.’ Billy pauses with a tiny frown. ‘That was odd too. You seemed to think that you knew him really well. Like you were old friends.’ _Sam Chisolm is your best friend,_ says the other Billy in his mind, as his own Billy continues, ‘You acted it out like you hadn’t seen him in ages, wanted to know what he’d been doing, and you kept laughing at the idea of his being a teacher.’ 

Goodnight’s head is reeling. ‘How did he take it?’ 

‘In the end he got exasperated and asked what he was supposed to be, and you said, a lawman. Then you started in on his stories, all these daring arrests, just like in a movie.’

Goodnight closes his eyes again, struggling to digest what he’s heard. Didn’t anyone notice what was wrong? How could he be so different, and even Billy not realise? How could he believe something so far-fetched be true? But then, none of the guests here knew him well, did they? And they were expecting to be entertained, to enter into the spirit of the past: why should they question him? And Billy? He opens his eyes again at Billy’s foot tapping against his ankle and smiles as reassuringly as he was able. He’d spent a day himself wavering between belief and disbelief; he knows Billy too well not to have seen the tiny spark of doubt in his eyes even as he said absurd, impossible. ‘Let’s just hope they’re not expecting the same from me today.’ 

 

As they go out to fetch their horses Goodnight can’t help looking around to be sure of where he is, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary: Jack’s outside again, talking on the radio to his hands; at the stables Brent is toting a bale of hay from the trailer, and Alice is helping Mariah to check her horse’s hooves. _I was in the past_ , he wants to say, but now in the light of day he’s not so sure. Perhaps he can walk around the town later, see how it matches up to his memory of what he thinks he saw. 

They head out to join the roundup, Billy trotting beside him neat in his black vest, but they haven’t gone far before they hear a rider behind them and a shout. They turn to see Sam cantering up behind on his black horse. 

‘Didn’t think I’d be the last out this morning,’ he says cheerfully as he comes level with them, reigning up clumsily with a muttered, ‘Whoa, horse.’ He scrutinises Goodnight suspiciously. ‘How are you so fresh?’ He looks over to Billy. ‘Thought you had to all but carry him off to bed.’

‘Sore head?’ asks Goodnight awkwardly. Maybe if he was that drunk he’s forgotten most of what he heard. 

‘Hell, yes,’ laughs Sam. ‘Can’t hold my liquor way an old range hand like you can.’ 

Goodnight can’t help flushing. ‘Guess I made a fool of myself,’ he begins, but Sam cuffs him on the shoulder. ‘You’re kidding! Don’t know where it all came from, and I’m a mite disturbed that you seem to know more about the history round here than I do, but it was grade-A entertainment!’ 

He’s so obviously tickled that Goodnight can’t but be pleased despite the strangeness he feels. ‘Creative reconstruction,’ he says nervously, flicking a glance over to Billy. 

‘And some - here am I, a timid high-school teacher and a third-rate hand on a horse, and you were telling everyone I was the toughest hombre ever rode into town and pulled a gun.’ 

‘Second toughest,’ says Billy, lifting an eyebrow, and Sam’s grin lights up under his moustache. 

‘Were you a duly-sworn warrant-officer,’ he asks loftily, ‘in, what was it, nine territories, bringing robbers and rustlers to justice?’ 

‘Bounty-hunting,’ says Goodnight, Billy’s words dancing through his mind, ‘we worked together, didn’t we?’ 

Sam guffaws. ‘That’s it, made it sound like we were like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, taming the Wild West.’ His expression changes. ‘Frank didn’t like that – he’s the type wants to think the West was white. When you said any of us three could outshoot him every day of the week, I thought he’d be dragging us outside to prove it.’ 

Goodnight swallows, his throat suddenly dry at the implication. Shootouts in the street? It’s one thing to think past and present might bleed into each other, but what if something like a dream could have consequences that were uncomfortably real? 

 

Fortunately Frank’s not out at the stock pens when they arrive, though Chloe is there with her namesake and Mike, along with Téo. The day before yesterday Goodnight might have called it a hardworking morning, helping move the cattle from their pens one group at a time to be branded and tallied, reading ear tags and joining in rounding up the occasional lively escapee. But today he can see it’s no more than play – the leisurely ride out, time to chatter and enjoy the morning air, the unhurried pace with no sense of urgency and no overseer to keep them up to the mark. He can say, ‘I’ll just take ten minutes’ break,’ whenever he wants; Mike drifts off altogether after a while, down to the river with his fishing line. 

Everyone’s enjoying it – he’s enjoying it – but all the time he thinks of Billy. Not the Billy he can see, face bright in the sun and hair coming loose from its tie, calming a fractious calf or asking about ranch brandmarks, but the other Billy, labouring in the heat and dust. At least he must have the right Goodnight with him to save him the extra work, though he’d got the impression that Billy was used to picking up the slack for him; even among his suspicion and bewilderment a sense of protectiveness had lingered. What did he make of it, the tale that Goodnight had to tell?

 

Jack turns up at their lunchtime break to check on their progress, and while he’s occupied with directing the hands Goodnight eyes him curiously. That story he told, about the guy who claimed to be a gambler – could it have been? Has someone else experienced what he has? Does Jack know more about this place than he lets on? When the others take themselves off to eat he wanders over to where Jack is standing to cast a proprietorial eye over the stock. 

‘It’s our greatest convert to the ranching life,’ Jack greets him, amiable as ever. ‘Ready to sign up permanently?’ 

‘I suspect that being a real ranch hand isn’t all picnic lunches and three-course dinners,’ says Goodnight, feeling again the strange overlay of dream and here-and-now. 

Jack huffs out a laugh. ‘Well, maybe not quite,’ he allows. ‘But you’re enjoying yourselves, you and Billy?’ 

‘Think that’s clear enough.’ Billy hadn’t said how much he’d spoken to Jack yesterday: it’s difficult to pick his words. ‘Place does tend to draw you in.’ 

‘Don’t it, though?’ Jack looks proud. ‘Sometimes, if you catch it right, when the trailers are out of sight and people are dressed for work, it can seem like it’s woken up again just as it was.’ Goodnight searches Jack’s face as unobtrusively as he can, but all he can see is honest enthusiasm. 

‘You said you had trouble one time, with a man insisting he wasn’t a cowhand?’ 

Jack sobers. ‘Now he really did take it a bit far. We left him in the saloon like he wanted, but by the end of the day he’d got so drunk he was threatening to shoot the place up: we had to hogtie him and shut him in the barn to cool off.’ 

‘What happened to him?’ Goodnight’s scalp is prickling and Jack looks at him with concern. 

‘No real harm done, we’re careful to see to that. He was more shook up than anyone else, next day: he took off, wouldn’t stay after.’ He’s trying to be reassuring, but Goodnight can just imagine it, the indignant gambler surrounded by people telling him he’s here to work the cattle, and his modern counterpart struggling dazed and alone in a world that’s suddenly changed. 

Jack claps him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t think you’re in danger of that – he was a bit of a hothead from the get-go. You’re doing just fine.’ 

‘Don’t think I’ll ever make more than a third-rate cowhand,’ says Goodnight ruefully. ‘Got a lot to learn.’ 

It sparks a sudden thought. ‘Is there a school in the town?’ he asks. 

‘A school?’ Jack pushes back his hat. ‘Certainly isn’t now. Can’t see how I’d sell that as a vacation experience.’ He looks at Goodnight curiously. ‘Why d’you ask?’ 

_Because I saw one yesterday._ ‘Just wondering,’ he says lamely. Thought I saw something like a schoolhouse when I was walking round.’ 

Jack looks dubious. ‘Guess there might have been. Could try asking Red, he’s a lot more up on the history than me.’

Goodnight’s worried he’s drawn too much attention to himself, but Jack drapes his arm across his shoulders to steer him in the direction of lunch. ‘Let’s eat, eh?’

 

What’s on offer is plentiful and tasty, the trailer supplying boxes of gourmet sandwiches and salads, sliced fruit and pastries. Fresh air and exercise mean that everyone does it justice, and they take their time over it, sitting round cross-legged in the shade by the river. The simple sensations of sun, food and relaxation combine to anchor Goodnight firmly in the present, and he’s able to wink at Billy with something closer to normality than he’s felt all day. 

Mike has reluctantly laid aside his fishing line to eat; ‘Guess I’m not likely to catch much here?’ he asks Jack. 

Jack stuffs in the last of the sandwich he’s been demolishing and licks his fingers. ‘Nothing in there but shiners and catfish. You want proper fishing, you need to get up into the hills – river runs clearer, and there’s good sport for bass and carp.’ 

Mike brightens immediately. ‘Any chance of that? Brought all my gear.’ 

‘Can organise it if you’re interested,’ offers Jack sunnily, ‘Red can take you, he knows the best places and that’ll give you permission to fish on reservation territory.’ 

‘Count me in,’ says Mike at once.

‘And me,’ chimes in Chloe. 

‘Be a more than a day trip,’ warns Jack. ‘You’ll be camping overnight, and no meals like this.’ 

‘Worth it, though.’ The two of them are all enthusiasm as they launch into reminiscences of other backwoods trips, and Goodnight takes the opportunity to catch Billy’s eye. 

‘How about it?’ he asks in an undertone. He’s not much for fishing, neither of them is, but he knows Billy’s keen to see more of the country and right now a break from constant company has its appeal. 

‘We could,’ says Billy, with a private smile, then to Jack, ‘if you have camping gear we could use?’ 

‘That and fishing poles too,’ promises Jack, and Goodnight reaches to squeeze Billy’s calf, warmed by his approval of the plan. ‘Jack will turn us into two mountain men next.’

\--

Riding back to town at the end of the afternoon Goodnight’s pleased to see Billy looking more cheerful: a day of hands-on work and fresh air appears to have had the same effect on his anxiety as it has on Goodnight’s own equilibrium. 

Billy sees him looking and asks gently, ‘Feeling better?’ 

Goodnight tests out how he feels before he answers: pleasantly tired, with a sense of achievement he suspects is largely undeserved, and finally calm. ‘I am,’ he says; the images that seemed so sharp and urgent when he woke have become distant and fragmentary, the conviction that possessed him in the morning overtaken by the day’s mundane events. He’s almost ready to agree that it was an aberration of his mind and no more; almost, but he thumbs his ring on a reflex and looks down at the flash of gold. 

‘Plenty of time before dinner,’ says Billy as they reach the stables. ‘Maybe we could try the bathhouse. Mariah said she and Abbie were going yesterday to be coated in mud and then steamed.’ 

It’s an appealing idea, even after so short a working day, but Goodnight’s reluctant to reawaken the ghost of yesterday, the tin tub and Billy with his dawning suspicion. ‘You go, cher,’ he urges, ‘try it out; I want to walk round a bit, get my bearings.’ 

He’s not sure he can explain what he means, but Billy squeezes his arm with quiet understanding. ‘Take your time. Just be sure you come back.’ 

Goodnight watches him stroll away: it’s probably just suggestion, but the black and white figure and the town backdrop seem to shimmer: it could be _now_ or _then_ , a cowboy in black vest and hat striding along the wooden sidewalk, whistling on his way to the bath. 

The main street is empty, hands still at work and guests either recovering from the day or already eating and drinking; Goodnight feels a little like a ghost himself as he walks in the opposite direction along the wooden sidewalk, noting the buildings as he passes them. The hotel that was just the same, and the saloon, though the brass on the doors is brighter and the paint fresher; General Store, yes, and next to it an empty building, its weathered planks and dusty windows unrenovated: he can just make out the faded gilt lettering on the glass: _New Providence Bank_. 

He crosses the street and goes back down the other way, past the stables with its outbuildings behind, to another empty place that was clearly some kind of store – he can make out shelves and a counter when he squints through the door – then the freight office and another little store, and the sidewalk ends before the unused corrals and barns that mark this end of town. No schoolhouse. But there must have been, for the children he saw. Maybe, though, he shouldn’t look for it here; would parents want their children close to the goings-on in the saloon? 

He ducks around behind the stores, crunching his way across the rough ground: here the remaining buildings are much more rickety, small cabins with roofs collapsed, their planks warped and split by the weather. _Not built to last._ And at a little distance he finds what he thinks he’s been looking for: a squat building still carrying faint traces of white paint, its high windows making it impossible to see in. The door is stiff, and he wonders for a moment if it’s locked, but it gives at a shove with his shoulder: the whole town’s abandoned, after all. 

Inside it’s dim, everything coated with grey gritty dust, but the forms are still there, rows of seats bolted to the floor, and the teacher’s high desk at the front. He can just imagine it full of obedient children, girls in print dresses and bonnets, boys in jackets and boots too big for them, copying their grammar on slates and reciting their history lessons. Something small skitters away under his feet and comes rattling to a stop: he picks up a metal button. Was it from the coat of one of the boys he saw playing yesterday? 

‘Never bothered to open up this place,’ says a voice behind him, ‘always been more call for the saloon than for the school.’

Red Harvest moves confidently from the door to stand beside the tall desk, surveying the room. ‘Hard to see a purpose for it now.’ He’s dressed the same as any of them, shirt and jeans dusty from the day, and a timeless leather vest, but he at least is unmistakably of the present: a hundred and fifty years ago a Comanche would have been a rarity in town, in buckskin and feathers. _Didn’t see any of them yesterday_. 

‘That’s what Jack said. Sad to see it so neglected, though.’ 

Red smiles. ‘Told you it was eerie.’ 

‘Must have been a sight when it was all like this.’ Goodnight takes a breath to slow the thump of his pulse. ‘You said you stayed here overnight, for a dare.’ It’s like inching out onto thinning ice, one careful step at a time. 

‘One time. We weren’t supposed to. They said it was dangerous.’ Red traces a finger over the surface of the desk. Goodnight makes an encouraging noise. ‘There was a boy, older than me – he stayed here, his friends dared him. He vanished.’ 

Goodnight goes still and Red seems to pick up on it, fixing him with an unreadable gaze. ‘There was a search – they said he must have got stuck somewhere, or fallen down a well, but they never found him, and after that they told us he must have run away.’ 

‘And you still came here?’ 

Red snickers. ‘You know what boys are like. Wanted to prove I was brave.’ 

‘And?’ It’s difficult to see in the half-light, but Goodnight sees something in Red’s dark gaze that suggests he knows why he’s here. He swallows. ‘Did it all come back to life again for you?’ 

Red laughs, a quiet laugh, and turns away. ‘Nope. Woke up hungry with a crick in my neck and had to make up a story for my friends.’ 

‘Oh,’ says Goodnight, deflated. 

Red moves back to the door and holds it open for him. ‘Place plays on people, that’s for sure. Why it works so well.’ 

‘Guess everyone wants to feel they’re in a movie,’ agrees Goodnight, feeling foolish as he steps back into the sun. 

Red pulls the door closed behind them. ‘You and Billy thinking of coming upcountry to fish?’ 

‘We were,’ says Goodnight; he’d forgotten, coming back into town. 

‘Huh,’ says Red as they pick their way round the stores to the main street. He fixes Goodnight with a stare, direct and unsettling. ‘Could be a good idea.’ 

‘You figure?’ Again Goodnight thinks he sees just a flicker of something knowing before Red relaxes into a boyish grin. 

‘I’m not supposed to insult the guests, but you’re not a natural at cowherding.’ 

Goodnight blows out a laugh, his tension draining. ‘Don’t need to tell me that.’ 

 

Back at the boarding-house he has time to clean up and get out pen and notebook before Billy comes back, damp and flushed. ‘Did they cover you in mud?’ Goodnight hauls him in to inspect, but all he can see is a glow of relaxation and a faint hint of smugness. 

‘I was steamed and soaked and massaged,’ says Billy with satisfaction. ‘Thoroughly recommended.’ 

‘I thought you were the toughest hombre on the range,’ teases Goodnight, burying his face in his collar to inhale him and eliciting a shake of laughter. 

‘Where did you go?’ 

‘Walked around, looked in the old stores.’ Goodnight fishes the button from his pocket and shows it to him. ‘Found the schoolhouse.’ Billy raises his eyebrows. ‘It’s not restored. Red Harvest turned up there – probably making sure I didn’t fall through the floorboards. I talked to him a bit. He said –‘ Well, what had he said? Nothing, really. ‘Kept thinking he was going to let me in on some big secret about the place, but he didn’t really say anything.’ 

Billy sits on the bed and surveys him. ‘But you’re still feeling OK?’ Goodnight’s touched, as always, by the intensity of his concern, the fierce protectiveness he’s done so little to deserve, but which carried him through the long months of rehabilitation, Billy patiently working to rebuild his shattered confidence as surely as his clever hands had reconstructed his bones. 

He reaches to tuck a strand of hair, still damp from the bath, behind his husband’s ear. ‘I am,’ he says, and he realises it’s the truth. All day he’s felt under pressure to show that he was in command of himself, to reassure Billy that he was here in the present with him, and he’d felt like an actor playing a part; now, finally, he feels fully in place again. 

Billy tilts his head. ‘Think you can face the crowd for dinner?’ 

Goodnight draws himself up theatrically, adjusting his cravat. ‘I feel I owe it to my public to appear.’

 

The sense of stability stays with him through dinner; though they’re in the saloon again it’s too firmly anchored in the present to trouble him – familiar faces, female as well as male, all lively and good-humoured – and he weathers the teasing for yesterday’s stories and Sam’s enthusiastic retelling of his own exploits with good grace. He’s careful to limit what he drinks, savouring the smoky-smooth bourbon, though he plays up a little to expectation: but even without his prompting, everyone seems to have an idea of the life they’d have led in the past, gamblers and explorers, doctors and railroad speculators, and he feels a little ashamed of his lack of ambition in placing himself and Billy so low down in society. 

After a while they take a break outside so Goodnight can smoke, Billy lounging with his back to the rail. Goodnight’s been glad to see how Billy’s watchfulness has faded too, and things feel easy again between them in the quiet dusk, so it comes as a surprise when Billy begins tentatively, ‘I was thinking more about it, about what you said. Us, being here in a different time, together.’ 

‘What about it,’ he asks cautiously, reluctant to puncture the evening’s bubble of wellbeing. 

Billy turns to look out across the street, face lit faintly in profile. ‘I guess it could have been true for you – there could have been an ancestor of yours here, Texas isn’t so far from Louisiana, but there can’t have been any of mine. None of my family was over here then. Your great-uncle or your cousin might have walked this street, and maybe Sam’s too, but mine didn’t.’ 

It’s logical, but why raise it now? Goodnight looks at him sideways: as he’s been moving away from his initial conviction, more and more convinced by the solid fabric of reality around him that he really did imagine it, is Billy moving in the opposite direction? ‘I know, but that tells you something, doesn’t it?’ He holds out an arm so Billy can lean against his side. ‘Even when I invent a whole world, you’re still there at the heart of it, however unlikely it might be.’ He thinks Billy smiles at that, though it’s had to tell. ‘Why worry about it now, cher?’

‘I just…’ Billy considers. ‘It just doesn’t seem to add up. To experience what you did – you’d have had to be disturbed, upset, but Sunday and today, now, you’re just like you always are. And…’ 

He falls silent again, time stretching out until Goodnight prompts softly, ‘And?’ 

It comes out almost unwillingly. ‘Seeing you today … you were better at some things yesterday. Better with Adelaide. Better with your hands. You seemed more confident, I wondered if you’d been practising secretly...’ 

Goodnight hugs him closer, amused. ‘I was just the same. You were great, in my imagination. So tough. So – stoical. Really hard work and not much to eat, the boss shouting at us all the time, and no hot water and the bed all lumpy, and you just took it all in your stride.’ 

Billy turns to face him. ‘Wishful thinking on both sides?’ 

‘Less in my case than yours,’ says Goodnight, tossing away the stub of his cigarette. ‘We done for the night?’

 

Back upstairs, though Goodnight isn’t drunk it’s still a business to get out of his old-fashioned clothes, watch-chain clipped across the small buttons of his vest and cufflinks in his sleeves: he realises that Billy has stopped to watch him, and slows down for his appreciative audience, boots, cravat, pants and shirt, until he’s down to his briefs. 

‘Now you,’ he says, settling against the pillows, the brass frame cold against his back as Billy strips off vest and pants and tugs his shirt over his head. It’s a sight Goodnight could never tire of, this gorgeous man who’s inexplicably his, the lamplight touching his skin to bronze, hair falling loose from its pins; but seeing him here, with the china jug on the chest and the text on the wall, it magics up side by side with him the image of yesterday’s Billy as he saw him in the bathhouse, sinewy and spare, his skin weathered and scarred. 

Billy pauses, eyes narrowing, and Goodnight shakes his head to dispel the vision, holding out his arms in invitation. Billy bounces down beside him, warm and naked, pinning him down with an expression full of promise, and Goodnight stretches lasciviously underneath him, his growing arousal thumping with his pulse. He runs his hands over smooth skin, tangles a hand in Billy’s hair as he grinds against him, nips at the little sun tattoo on his shoulder; but as he presses his lips to the mark he remembers the starlike scar he saw yesterday; the dark hair that runs through his fingers sleek and fine seems as though it should be dusty and tangled; when he runs a hand down the smooth skin of Billy’s flank he sees in his mind’s eye the whitened lines of old wounds. 

He struggles to stay in the moment, closing his eyes to concentrate on the sensation of here and now, but the doubling of vision is too distracting, and despite his efforts his desire begins to ebb. Billy’s movements slow too, at first Goodnight thinks in response to his own, but when he rolls onto his back with a sigh it’s plain that his heart’s not in it either. 

‘I’m sorry, cher,’ says Goodnight. ‘I just … you were here, and.. it’s like I’m seeing two of you.’ He hears how it sounds. ‘I don’t mean – I know where I am-’ but Billy sits up, a look on his face Goodnight can’t read. 

‘You did this in your dream too?’ 

‘No,’ says Goodnight, caught off guard, ‘we were at the bathhouse,’ and he’s suddenly overcome with a strange sense of shame, at having been so intimate with someone who wasn’t Billy. _Except he was_ , protests his memory. Goodnight reaches for his hand. ‘There’s only you for me, you know that.’ 

He expects an answering embrace, but instead Billy is silent. ‘What is it?’ A cold bud of suspicion starts to swell, all unlooked-for. 

‘When we- you –‘ Billy raises his face suddenly. ‘You said you don’t remember, but – yesterday, in the shower. It was you. It must have been you.’ 

_In the -_ Suspicion blossoms instantly into scorching jealousy. _Billy with the other Goodnight?_

‘You-‘ Unwanted visions cloud his sight as Billy reaches for him, urgently. 

‘You were pretending. You know, to be a real cowboy, amazed at all the new inventions. I was showing you the shower, you said, _show me how it works, cher_ , so I did, and –‘ 

And Goodnight gets a sudden piercing sympathy for his other self, for how it must have been, waking up in a clean soft bed, Billy there opening a cupboard door onto gleaming tiles and taps and tugging him laughing under the steaming water. _What could he think it was but a dream?_

Billy looks at him, troubled. ‘It was you,’ he says again; Goodnight struggles for words, but then he remembers, how he’d kissed the other Billy over the water jug, not knowing, and the kiss hadn’t shown him any difference, had it? 

His anger evaporates: it’s too confusing, but one thing he knows, and he wraps Billy into his embrace to offer the comfort of incontrovertible reality, touch and scent and the beat of his heart. He rests his cheek against Billy’s hair and murmurs again, ‘Only you for me.’


	4. Chapter 4

This time when Goodnight wakes he snaps alert: the room’s the same, but though it’s still grey morning light there are sounds of activity from below and outside, the bed smells of unwashed sheets and horse … he knows where he is. Billy’s tucked against his back in the bed, one arm over his chest, the gesture hauntingly familiar. He lies without moving, calculating; a day here, a day back in the present, another day here? Perhaps there’s a pattern to it, if not an explanation. 

He runs a thumb over his finger: no ring. He’s spent the last day worrying about the Billy beside him, about the life of hard work he lives for little reward, and dwelling on the luxuries denied to him. But what about Goodnight, his counterpart, who must be waking up in the future with the ring on his hand? He can absolutely imagine it as Billy described, Goodnight from 1876 convinced it was all some crazy dream, hot showers and more food than he could eat, playing at work. And now, when he finds himself there again, what will he think? What will Billy think, after all they said yesterday? He wishes there were some way he could speak to him, so close and yet so distant, and to the other Goodnight, the only person who shares this fantastical experience. 

That’s the question, though: why him? Billy had asked, and he hadn’t answered: Billy has a counterpart here too, he’s here in the same room, the same bed, yet he isn’t waking up…displaced. Is it something peculiar to him, some cast of mind that makes him susceptible? He spends enough time reading about other worlds, certainly, his imagination playing on what might be: you don’t become a good translator without being able to inhabit an author’s world.  
.  
But if he can’t fathom the how and why of it, he can at least ask, _what for_? He’s no longer panicked and disbelieving: knowing when he is, he can face the day properly –hell, he can do what the holiday promised and be a real cowboy. And if he’s to be given this astounding opportunity, to visit the past, live its life, surely he owes it to…to science, to humanity, to experience it as best he can, to learn, to bring back the knowledge of what history can teach. The idea throws up a sudden vision of himself as a Starfleet explorer visiting a strange world, tricorder in hand, making notes for the log of the Enterprise-E, and his quake of laughter has Billy stirring beside him.

That prompts the thought that here in the past there’s a real day’s work to do, and Billy shouldn’t have to carry him as he had to before. He sits up, rubbing at his face; Billy rolls over, and before he can say anything Goodnight stands up, reaching for the pants that are slung over the bedrail, and says, ‘I’ll get us some water.’ Billy grunts in acknowledgement, stretching his way to wakefulness.

By the time he comes back Billy’s half-dressed, pinning up his hair roughly; Goodnight puts down the jug and tries to frame the words. 

‘I know you’re not him,’ says Billy immediately. He doesn’t look exactly welcoming, but at least he seems to take it in his stride. 

‘I’m the same as before,’ says Goodnight quietly. ‘I went back for a day, and your Goody must have been here again. He was there with Billy, in the future. What did he tell y-‘ 

‘Later,’ says Billy, though there’s a spark of humour; ‘we’re not in the future now, where we get to sit round all day flapping our jaws.’

Mindful of his resolution Goodnight jumps to obey: he splashes his head and chest, then dresses and collects what he’ll need with considerably more efficiency than last time. In his haste he tangles his cravat, but Billy tsks, turns him round and fixes it for him with skill born of long practice, and when it’s done leans in as though to kiss him. Goodnight freezes, and Billy straightens, embarrassed. ‘Sorry. Habit.’ 

‘Glad to hear it,’ says Goodnight with a wink, and Billy breaks into the grin he treasures.

Following him out of their room and down the stairs, _I’m in the past_ , he tells himself, _this is the real Wild West_ , and everything, the dingy wallpaper and kerosene lamps, the worn stair carpet and the men crowding into the dining room, comes sharp into focus. _I’m in the past and I need to learn, what it was really like_. The sensation is like walking a tightrope: if he let himself think about what’s happening, about how he’s woken up out of his own time, his poise would shatter, but as long as he concentrates on the bone-handled knife and fork, on the cowhands at the table beside them shovelling in their food, on the glimpses he gets of the kitchens, women heaving pots onto a huge black range, he can take it calmly, looking on with a detached curiosity. 

The breakfast’s no better than before, and the woman who brings it just as ill-tempered, but this time he eats with as much appetite as he can muster. ‘What’s the drill for today?’ he asks, gulping down the surprisingly adequate coffee. ‘Moving cows again?’ 

‘Last batch,’ says Billy, ‘then we’ll be branding and tallying. Less riding, more wrestling. Not hard, you’ll pick it up.’ 

‘Had a little practice,’ says Goodnight nervously. 

Billy looks up from his plate, his expression rueful. ‘That’s as much as either of us has; not our regular line of work, but they need the hands and we need the money.’ Goodnight can’t say he’s entirely reassured.

 

This time he’s ready to go out with Billy to the stables and saddle up: though it’s early Zeke’s Crossing is already up and doing: the stores aren’t open yet, but the street’s busy with riders and carts, men and women hauling up buckets from the well and horses milling in the corrals. What strikes him most is how mundane it all is, in a working town like this – the struggle to keep the stove alight and the food cooked, to heat a bath or keep a horse in good condition, the sheer weight of work to get from one end of the day to the other, chopping wood, scrubbing floors, shovelling straw and herding cows, and then all to do again tomorrow: 

Maybe somewhere else there are men and women of leisure, taking tea or brandy and discussing politics and literature, fashion or science, but he’s not seen anyone like that here. Here he sees girls barely more than children bent over tubs of washing, men on rough carts heading out for a day of hauling lumber, hands in heavy aprons cleaning out the stables. It’s a simple existence, and one that begins and ends at the town limits, an oasis of something called civilisation in an untamed wilderness.

And he has a day’s work ahead of him too, and this time he’s determined to live up to the task. They make good time out to the start of the drive; though they’re not the first to arrive, they’re not the last either. Goodnight thinks he recognises Mose and one or two of the other hands, greeting them with a cautious nod, but to his surprise he gets a round of friendly acknowledgements. 

‘Here’s our Deadeye Jack,’ says Mose, and a red-cheeked young man with a shock of curly hair, nudges his horse closer to volunteer, ‘Talked to my brother last night: he’s for a competition, says he can set it up.’ 

Goodnight glances quickly at Billy: hadn’t he said shooting contests were their trade? _I can outdraw anyone, but they never believe it. People will bet against me._ But… ‘When does he reckon for it?’ he asks with as enthusiastic a grin as he can muster. 

‘Day or two, says Curly, ‘soon’s we’re paid.’ 

‘Suits us,’ says Billy at his side. He looks at Goodnight expectantly, but he’s working it through in his head; Billy adds, ‘Your brother ready to put his dollars where his mouth is?’ 

‘You ain’t never seen a shot like him,’ says Curly confidently, ‘can draw quicker’n you can see and put a slug through a crow’s eye.’ 

One of the older hands scoffs. ‘He ain’t so good. Fella I saw in San Antone one time, he could hit the ace on a card from a galloping horse.’ 

As the tales get taller, Billy nudges Goodnight. ‘You usually do the talking,’ he says in an undertone. ‘Brag us up to make sure they put their money down.’ 

‘Try to do better,’ says Goodnight contritely. ‘But – last time I was here they thought I was a joke. What happened?’ 

‘Goody happened.’ Does Billy know how his face warms when he talks about him? ‘He shot a rattler yesterday, impressed them some.’ 

‘He’s that good?’ Goodnight’s impressed too: his counterpart’s boasts were plainly founded on confidence. Maybe he can show that blowhard Frank a thing or two. He grins at Billy as Wetherall comes cantering up and begins to shout their orders

Though Wetherall is no more accommodating the work comes easier than before: Goodnight fits more smoothly into his place in the drove line, and when the last cut of cattle are herded bellowing into the pens, wrangling them for counting and branding is less demanding, partly because Billy’s at his side, muttering instructions to clarify what he should be doing, and partly because he gives his whole attention to the task. It’s still hot and unrelenting, but Goodnight feels he’s taking at least some of his proper share of the work, and this time there’s some of the camaraderie in labour that was missing the day before.

When they break at midday, instead of taking off the two of them alone Goodnight deliberately stays with the other hands; at first it’s just cramming in food to the accompaniment of crude jokes, but with a little pushing he gets Mose talking about the places he’s been, following the cattle trails up as far as the Red River, and then skinny Mexican they call Gordito tells how he and his brother aimed to be prospectors, but his brother died in a quarrel and he drifted into range work. Billy shows the barest of interest and soon drifts away, but Goodnight sits and listens, intrigued by these tiny individual fragments of old-time life. If only Sam could hear it… 

It’s absorbing, but from the corner of his eye he can see Billy sitting alone under a stunted tree, tossing pebbles at a target, and guilt gradually works its way to the surface. Billy doesn’t look up when Goodnight comes over to join him, but, ‘You really think that’s wise?’ he asks. 

‘Wise?’ Goodnight squats down and Billy turns an accusing stare on him. 

‘Cosying up to people. We won’t be staying here.’ 

‘I wasn’t…’ starts Goodnight, but then tails off. How to explain what he was doing, talking to them? ‘Seems a shame not to. I mean, taking the chance to speak to them, working men, hear what they think about the world.’ 

Billy hawks out dust. ‘What’s so great about hearing a bunch of trail hands bitch about their chances in life? How they could have struck it rich if their partner hadn’t cheated them? How their brothers got the farm and they had to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?’ He’s surprisingly savage. ‘Buy any man a ten-cent shot and you can hear as much as you want about how unfair life is.’ 

Goodnight can’t help himself. ‘But it’s just so interesting. It’s the kind of story we never hear – the history we’re told is all about achievement, railroad pioneers and explorers, educated men and women who wrote things down: but no one ever wrote down the stories at the other end of society, the cooks and the cowhands, men doing a day’s work like this. It’s fascinating.’ 

‘Fascinating,’ says Billy flatly, standing up and dropping the stub of his cigarette under his boot. With his features set in so ferocious a scowl he looks impossibly exotic. ‘That’s all we are to you, isn’t it – an entertainment, like looking at creatures in a pond. And then you get to go back to your Rock Candy Mountain world and tell stories about us.’ 

‘That’s not how it is-‘ Goodnight starts, but Billy’ furious. 

‘Goody told me how it is there, how you play at working, how the bosses aren’t real bosses and everyone does what they like. We must seem like savages to you.’ 

There’s enough truth in it to make Goodnight flush. ‘Of course not,’ he says, stricken. He remembers Wetherall’s slurs and Billy’s stoic silence: and now he thinks that this new version of his partner is looking down on him too. ‘You’re – everyone wants to be like you, I mean, all of you, the people who made America what it is, tough and brave and adventurous. Hell, that’s why we came here: we tell ... stories about you, about how it was, and all of us, me and Billy and Sam and Mariah, we came to get a tiny sense of that.’ 

Billy frowns. ‘Play-acting at a life like this?’ 

‘Yes,’ admits Goodnight candidly. ‘We forget what it was really like, working for a living and everything so precarious, you put all of us to shame.’ He hopes he can communicate some of the admiration he feels, for Billy, for all of them. 

‘Take what you gets,’ shrugs Billy. ‘No point complaining about it.’ But Goodnight’s words seem to have gone some way to convincing him.

He’s about to say more, but at that moment Wetherall comes striding over. Goodnight’s sure he’s been more competent today simply by virtue of not being so confused and panicked he can’t think straight, but if he has been doing better it doesn’t seem to have had any effect on Wetherall’s temper; his handsome features are set in what appears to be a habitual scowl. 

‘We need two hands to stay out with the stock tonight,’ he announces brusquely. ‘There’s savages around.’ 

‘Savages?’ It takes Goodnight a moment to understand: he hasn’t seen a single native, but then what does he know? 

Wetherall favours him with a contemptuous look. ‘What else? Caught sight of ‘em once or twice, and Mose did too.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘And as you two are always off on your own playing sweethearts’ – Goodnight sees Billy’s fingers twitch reflexively, though his expression doesn’t change – ‘I reckon you’re the boys.’ 

‘Can do,’ says Billy shortly. 

‘No problem,’ says Goodnight. 

Wetherall waits for a moment as though he’d expected an argument, then spits and stalks away.

‘Indians?’ asks Goodnight once he’s gone, swallowing hard. It’s far too much like his memories of the movies for comfort: are they expected to defend themselves against an attack by Comanche raiders? ‘Are there natives round here?’ 

‘Their land,’ shrugs Billy, ‘of course they’re here.’ Goodnight scans the horizon nervously and Billy laughs. ‘But the real answer is, Wetherall’s full of shit. Days of attacks on towns like this are long gone, and Comanche don’t want cows. Might take one or two stragglers on a drive, but he’s just trying to find ways to rile us.’ 

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Goodnight, cheered up immediately, ‘a night by the campfire with you’s nothing to complain about – that bed’s lumpier than a bag of walnuts.’

Billy’s hoot of amusement is genuine. ‘If you think there’s no difference between the bed and lying on the ground, you really are green,’ he scoffs, but Goodnight’s ready acquiescence seems to have mollified him.

 

A night on the range is one thing, but as the afternoon wears on Goodnight begins to wonder: they worked till sundown last time, and no chance to eat till they were done. Is tonight going to be the same, and them left out here with empty bellies? But towards the end of the day Mose comes over to where they’re working to tell them amiably, ‘Boss says I should take over here so you boys can go get some chow. He says bring your gear and be back here for sundown.’ 

‘Thanks,’ says Goodnight, handing over his tally rope in relief; as Billy joins him he mutters, ‘Thought he might keep us out here hungry to spite us.’ 

‘Maybe he’s afraid we’d roast up one of his cows if he did,’ says Billy dryly. He turns his horse back towards town. ‘C’mon, let’s eat while we can.’ 

They find an early dinner in the boarding-house dining room alongside a handful of clerks and a table of men in stiff collars who seem from their conversation to be something to do with the telegraph. The stew on offer is more turnip and potato than meat, but it’s filling, and there’s even a dessert of stodgy fruit cobbler to set them up for the night ahead. 

They eat in what Goodnight feels is a companionable silence, but as soon as Billy’s done he pushes back his chair and gets to his feet. ‘Business to attend to,’ he says shortly. ‘Catch you up at the livery.’ 

Goodnight stares at him in consternation for a moment before he masters himself: ‘Of course,’ he says. This Billy doesn’t owe him anything, and it’s natural that he might want some privacy, though the thought of being alone in this place and time sets him all at sea. 

‘Don’t be late,’ warns Billy over his shoulder as he strides away, leaving Goodnight sitting with the remains of his meal. 

Without Billy to anchor him the sense of dislocation comes rushing over him once more: he’s completely alone in an alien world, and everything he believes to be true, that he’s come from another life, a man from the future walking in the past, would be taken by those around him as the delusions of a madman. He’s tempted to retreat upstairs, but then he berates himself mentally. Wasn’t he thinking of the scientific curiosity of it this morning, thrilling to the cowhands’ stories of their ordinary lives? He needs to make the most of this, and an involuntary smile comes to his lips as he hears Jack’s words again: _I recommend you do what all cowboys do, hit the saloon for a shot or two and a game of cards_.

Strolling along the wooden boardwalk to the Diamondback is the first chance he’s had to examine the fine grain of reality, to really absorb what’s different about the past: the barrels of oysters and salt pork in the doorway of the General Store and the twig broom propped against the wall, the dust and piles of animal droppings in the street and the rough cart full of timber being unloaded. At this level of scrutiny everything is different: he sniffs the air, scenting dust, woodsmoke and horses, and tries to be unobtrusive as he scrutinises the clothes of passers-by. 

More children run by him, chasing and shouting, as he reaches the door of the saloon, and the two towns slip one over the other in his mind’s eye: _I picked up one of their buttons yesterday, a hundred and fifty years from now; I stood on these boards with my arm round Billy_. _Now_ and _then_ dance confusingly together once more, and the saloon is so familiar – the shining brass doors, the bare floorboards and mirrors advertising Ayer’s sarsaparilla – that at first it seems natural that Sam should be sitting at a table with a bottle and glass. 

Goodnight’s standing in the doorway staring at him when Sam raises his head and lights up into a face-cracking grin. Goodnight’s stomach lurches: the black-clad man in front of him isn’t the Sam he knows. This is a totally different Sam, older, or at least more lined and weatherbeaten, and physically more powerful; two chrome-plated pistols sit at his hips, and he exudes a presence and authority that his modern counterpart lacks. 

Sam leaps to his feet and comes striding over to wrap him in a bone-crushing hug. ‘Goody! I’ll be damned! Last I heard you were the other side of the Sierras: it’s a pure delight to see you again.’ 

What can Goodnight do but return his enthusiastic embrace? ‘You too, Sam,’ he says, thumping his back. 

Sam holds him at arms’ length. ‘You’re looking fine: how long has it been?’ 

_Less than twenty-four hours_ , supplies his mind, an edge of hysteria just below the surface. He racks his brain for what Billy told him about Sam Chisolm in this time – _best friend, owe him your life, though he hadn’t said how, worked with him bo-_ – ‘How’s the bounty-hunting business?’ he asks, instead of answering the question.

Sam slaps him on the back. ‘Never short of work, territory like this.’ He leads him back to the table, signalling to the barman for another glass. ‘Sit down and help me with this, and you can tell me what you’ve been doing.’ 

Can I? Goodnight sinks into the chair before his legs collapse under him and when Sam fills his glass he downs it in one go. The liquor’s as rough as can be, but the burn helps to steady him. He has to get this right: he can’t but be different from what Sam is expecting. ‘Billy and I have taken to honest labour: herding cows from dawn to dusk.’ 

Sam laughs as he refills his own glass. ‘Cows are what brought me here too: tracked a gang of stock thieves up from Waco.’ 

Goodnight furrows his brow. ‘Cattle rustlers? Bit small-time, isn’t it? What happened to train robbers or outlaw gangs holding up banks?’ 

Sam guffaws. ‘Small-time is what brings in the money, you know that; aren’t most outlaw gangs just jumped-up horse thieves, trying to make a reputation for themselves when all they’ve done is rob a poor widow of her wedding silver?’ 

Goodnight’s response is drowned out by a sudden scuffle and shout, then everything goes quiet as people begin to edge away from two men facing off at the bar. 

‘Ain’t going to take that kind of talk from a scumsucker like you,’ roars one: he’s dark and hefty in workstained clothes. 

‘Fancy your chances?’ sneers the other, a small pugnacious man in a suit, fists flexing. 

‘Take it outside,’ the barkeep tells them nervously, but neither pays him any attention. 

‘One chance to eat your words, or I’ll be ramming them down your throat,’ threatens the first, looming into his opponent’s space. 

The whole room’s holding its breath, and Goodnight wonders if he should duck for cover from flying furniture and hastily-drawn guns, but in the taut silence Sam stands up, slow and measured, picks up his glass ostentatiously and walks over to lean on the bar. 

‘Gimme a refill?’ he asks the barkeep, then addresses a spot between the two antagonists conversationally. ‘Came here for a quiet drink, like everyone else here. Hope I ain’t going to be disturbed.’ 

His stance is relaxed and his tone mild; he doesn’t even have to motion towards his gun for the heftier man to look him up and down, deflating. ‘Ain’t going to see no trouble from me.’ 

‘Nossir, Mr Chisolm,’ agrees the other. 

Sam takes his glass from the counter. ‘Drink for my friends here,’ he tells the barkeep, indicating the pair of them, and the background conversation starts up again. 

 

‘Impressive,’ comments Goodnight when Sam returns to their table. 

Sam shakes his head with a wry grin. ‘Just a couple of knuckleheads. Sure you’d have had the same effect on them.’ 

‘Me?’ asks Goodnight, wariness forgotten in the excitement. ‘They wouldn’t pay any mind to me.’ 

Sam looks at him oddly. ‘Now that ain’t so: won’t find many’ll face down the Angel of Death.’ _Angel of D-? The other Goodnight?_ Goodnight flounders in dismay, but fortunately Sam seems to read it as something else. ‘Spoke out of turn – I know you don’t appreciate it.’ 

‘I-‘ Goodnight knows he should say something, but anything he can think of seems wrong; he hunches over the table, searching for a response. 

Sam leans forward, sympathy in his eyes. ‘War’s a sorry business no matter what colour you wore – we all saw more we wanted to.’ A horrible insight dawns: Goodnight fought in the Civil War? And for the Confederates? _But Billy… and Sam, here_ : he can’t begin to fathom it.

Sam settles back again in his seat. ‘Hard work’s not usually your line.’ At least this is a subject Goodnight can manage. 

‘Needs must,’ he says vaguely, ‘money’s been tight. It’s good pay for a couple of week’s work. Billy’s more use than I am, but I guess that’s not new.’ 

‘Fight business not paying?’ 

Goodnight remembers what Curly said. ‘Men need money ‘fore they can put it down.’ 

‘Thought to try in Abilene?’ suggests Sam. ‘Lively place, when I passed through.’ 

Goodnight scrunches his forehead. ‘Thought you said you were in Waco?’ 

Sam tosses back his drink. ‘I was, and a merry dance I’ve had of since. Everyone seems to have their two-cents’ worth to say ‘bout cows going missing, but no one’s seen who’s doing it: every rumour I’ve chased up has been a dead end.’ 

‘Sure they’re not Indians?’ asks Goodnight. 

‘Comanche?’ Sam looks surprised. ‘Why d’you say?’ 

‘Wetherall, the boss here, he’s an asshole, he said something about Indian raiding parties.’ 

Sam frowns. ‘Don’t seem likely. I picked up a little of their lingo since we last met, and from what I can tell they’ve no interest in cattle.’ He considers. ‘Though if there’s a little band of them, who knows?’ It’s not exactly comforting. 

‘ _Never think this country can’t surprise you_ , Jack says.’ 

‘Jack?’ 

‘Jack Horne, runs the…’ Goodnight realises his mistake as soon as it’s out of his mouth.

‘Horne the scalp-hunter? You ran across him?’ _What?_ Goodnight’s hand isn’t entirely steady as he reaches for another gulp of fiery spirits. Sam looks reflective. ‘Had some dealings with him a few years back: gave him some advice, tho’ whether he took it I don’t know.’ 

He looks closely at Goodnight. ‘Goody, you do seem a mite jittery. Don’t want to speak out of turn, but if you’re concerned I’m interested in anyone’s likeness on a paper, no need to fret about that.’ 

Goodnight looks at him, baffled by this new turn; Sam says earnestly, ‘Ain’t easy for a good man in a hard world, and I know Billy for a good man: not everyone ends up on a warrant is deserving of it.’ 

_On a warrant? Billy a wanted man?_ It’s just too much to take in, and Goodnight scrambles to his feet, head spinning. He suddenly realises how time’s been passing. ‘Is it sundown? We’re supposed to head back out, take night watch with the herd.’ 

Sam stands up too and slings an arm around his shoulders. ‘Was intending to head out myself tomorrow, up to Fort Worth, but I can wait a day or two: ain’t my place to tell you what to do, you know that, but if money’s hard to come by you could always partner up with me again for a while.’ 

His brow is creased in concern, and it’s the strangest sensation yet: being with Billy, bewildering though it is, is comforting in its constancy – whenever he is, Billy is there at his side, the true north of his compass. But Sam – Sam Chisolm is someone he barely knows, a man with whom he’s struck up the beginnings of a friendship which may bloom or fade; but now he sees what it would be like to be friends with him ten years on, shared experience and confidences providing a solid platform for trust and affection. ‘Both of you, I mean. Could always use your talents.’ 

Goodnight returns his hug with genuine emotion. ‘Won’t say it’s not a tempting offer: got a contract to see out, but we can catch you up after and have time to consider.’ And by then the right Goodnight will be there to make the right decisions. 

 

Goodnight hurries back along the street, an eye on the setting sun. His hand goes to his vest: if he had a pill right now he’d swallow it down: he craves the calm it would bring to his rattling nerves. But there’s no little box in his vest; he finds a small flask in his coat which smells of liquor, but when he tips it up it’s empty. 

Billy’s already at the livery, bedrolls and cooking gear neatly stowed on their saddles; he looks up impatiently, though when he sees Goodnight’s expression he asks immediately, ‘What happened?’ 

‘Sam Chisolm,’ says Goodnight, ‘in the saloon.’ 

‘Sam? Here?’ 

‘Chasing some gang up to Fort Worth, he said.’ Goodnight leans against the wooden stall and closes his eyes. ‘He thought I was him.’ 

Billy takes out his cigarette case and lights two cigarettes, passing one without asking, and Goodnight draws deep on it, hands shaking. ‘Did he not realise…?’ 

Goodnight shakes his head. ‘Said he thought I was acting jittery.’ 

He expects Billy to ask more, but all he offers is a practical, ‘Good thing we’re out of town tonight.’ 

‘He said you should catch him up, you and Goody, maybe work together again,’ offers Goodnight. 

Billy just grunts as he swings up into the saddle, and Goodnight wonders, could he be throwing Billy and the other Goodnight’s life off track all unknowing, saying and doing the wrong thing?

It takes them some time to head back out to the stock pens, and as soon as they’re in sight Gordito trots up alone to meet them, impatient to hand over responsibility and head back to town. 

As he disappears behind them Billy leads the way around the pens and onto the ridge behind: ‘Upwind’, he comments in response to Goodnight’s questioning look. Well, he can see the sense of that – this close the mass of cattle is both noisy and pretty ripe. 

Billy sets about picketing the horses and Goodnight lets his bedroll and cooking gear thump to the ground. For all the songs and movies there’s certainly no romance to this: he’s dirty from a day’s work, uncomfortably gritty with dust, and there’ll be no washing – he’ll be sleeping in his clothes. A fire from whatever wood they can scrounge up and a bedroll on rough ground: it’s hardly the camping he and Billy signed up for, with fresh food supplied, air mattresses and tents, primus stoves and insect repellent, and as Billy warned, it gives him a new perspective on the boarding-house’s lumpy bed and primitive bathroom. He obligingly scavenges around for branches, then watches as Billy expertly builds a fire and sets water to boil in a blackened kettle, 

Goodnight shifts awkwardly to try to find a position to ease his aching legs; underneath his mind is still churning over everything that Sam said: Billy in this time, a criminal? But it’s the old days, he reminds himself – maybe he just … stole a horse or ran out on a debt. No need to assume he’s been murdering people. He watches Billy, absorbed in his task, not sure how to ask what he wants to, until, ‘Sam say anything about me?’ asks Billy, reading his mind. 

‘Said if you wanted to join up with him, he could use your skills.’ Goodnight swallows. ‘Mentioned something about a warrant, that he didn’t think it was a big deal…’ 

‘That,’ says Billy; he doesn’t seem surprised. 

‘What happened?’ The expressionless stare he gets makes him backtrack. ‘I mean – you don’t have to-‘ 

Billy blows out a sigh and goes back to stirring the kettle. ‘I came here to work on the railroad. We all did. But’ – he pauses. ‘I killed some men who needed killing. That’s it.’ 

This Billy had said to him, over and over, _You don’t know much, do you?_ and Goodnight’s never felt it more, seeing quiet clever Billy, his beloved, as a cold-eyed stranger calmly admitting to murder. Questions crowd in on him – _how did you kill them? How did it feel? Weren’t you afraid of what would happen?_ – but of course they make no sense. This is a world where law barely applies, every man for himself: an argument in the saloon and a shootout in the street, bandits and outlaws and the fastest gun wins.

‘That bother you?’ asks Billy, his expression distant. ‘It doesn’t worry Goody.’ 

‘Sam said – he said Goodnight was a soldier, he was the Angel of Death.’ 

Billy stirs the kettle. ‘It’s what they call him. But he hates it.’ He squats back on his heels. ‘He was a marksman in the army. He’s a crack shot, better than me: killed more men than anyone else in his company, and everyone’s heard of him – they still like to slap him on the back for it and hear the stories. But he’s not proud of it.’ 

‘No wonder I’m so useless to you.’ Goodnight had felt himself a spoilt middle-class type compared to Jack and his ranch hands, but nothing in his life could compare to his inadequacy in the face of this.

The coffee’s brewed and Billy fills two cups; as he hands one over, eyes bright across the fire, he asks, ‘Why are you here?’ It’s a conversation that’s long overdue. ‘Goody said, yesterday, that he dreamed about being in the future, and I told him you’d been here with me. He was upset, didn’t understand how it could have been real. Why is it happening like this?’ 

Goodnight shakes his head hopelessly. ‘I have no answer to that, except that it’s something about the town. I mean, you and Goodnight are here now, and Billy and I are there in the future. Something’s making us change places.’ It sounds so reasonable, put like that, but is there any purpose in trying to reason it out? ‘Jack said something about it happening to someone else, a man on his own: sounded to me as though he spent a day in the past, and his old self went to the future. He freaked out – hell, I would too, but I have you.’ He can’t but smile. ‘Both times.’ 

Billy’s persistent. ‘But what’s making it happen, apart from just being here? I’m here, now and in the future, and I’m not changing.’ 

All Goodnight can do is shrug. ‘No idea. Must be something about me - Sam’s here too, and in my own time, but it doesn’t seem to be happening to him either … though how long have you been here?’ 

A little frown appears on Billy’s face. ‘Two weeks, maybe. We’ll be leaving before long, hit the trail again.’ 

‘Us too. We’re only staying a week.’ Goodnight leans forward as the thought strikes him. ‘That’s one thing, though – there seems to be a pattern to it. Sunday we came to town, Monday I woke up here, yesterday there again and today back here.’ 

Billy counts it off on his fingers. ‘So tomorrow Goody will be here again? And on Saturday when we leave?’ 

Goodnight spreads his hands. ‘Makes sense. Insofar as any of it makes sense, I mean.’

Billy holds up the coffeepot and as he offers his cup for a refill Goodnight asks, ‘Where will you go, after here?’ Do this Billy and Goody have a home here? Billy’s not mentioned it, and if they’re herding cows because money is tight he guesses owning property’s a distant dream. Though couldn’t farmers claim land? His memories of the history he leant at school are so hazy. ‘You and Goody, you have your own place?’ 

Billy looks at him as though he’s joking. ‘No. We’re on the road, camping out, or in towns like this. We move around. I had a room in San Francisco for a while, but out here is better.’ 

No home, no roots: it’s a tough existence to contemplate, and Goodnight gets a sudden pang at the thought of his own home. Their house, the place they’ve made together, full of his books and Billy’s films, the furniture they bought together, the magnolia tree they planted, the bowls Billy’s sister sent for their wedding and his great-aunt’s escritoire. He could go and look for it, but all he’ll find is the place it’s going to be, years from now: San Fran itself is barely there yet.

Billy takes another cigarette from his case and lights it from the flames; by now it’s fully dark and the glow of the fire accentuates his sharp features. He puffs on it to get it lit, then draws in a deep lungful. He blows a stream of smoke upwards and holds the cigarette out to Goodnight. ‘Here.’ 

Goodnight takes it, but when he draws the smoke into his lungs, behind the sting of the tobacco comes a familiar honey-slow relaxation, the siren call that he dreads. He stiffens. ‘This is-’ 

‘Opium.’ Billy stretches out a hand out for it again. ‘It helps Goody. His dreams are bad, often, and little things can set him off, seeing what’s not there…’ He pauses. ‘Makes it all easier.’ He draws on it again and Goodnight sees it, the promise of relaxation at the end of a long punishing day, the sweet smoke to soothe you into dream when you’ve only a sore body and scant food and every day the same. 

Billy makes to offer the cigarette again and Goodnight steels himself: ‘I shouldn’t.’ It’s there, right there, and the want of it is enough to choke him, tight in every muscle. Billy raises an eyebrow and Goodnight forces himself to pick up his empty cup before his treacherous hand can reach out for it. ‘It’s …’ How can he tell it, his whole sorry story? 

‘I was in an accident, you saw. And after – they have pills. Painkillers. For broken bones.’ All those long months of agonising reknitting, one surgery after another. ‘I took them to feel better, but then when I was well I couldn’t stop, started taking more, got to be I was hardly there most of the time.’ He realises he’s twisting the cup around in his hands. ‘I kicked them. For Billy. Couldn’t stand for him to see me like that. And now…’ _I don’t_ , he’s about to say, but squirming shame stops him. ‘I do. I try not to, but I do.’ 

He steals a glance at Billy’s face and finds nothing there but calm acceptance. ‘Goody was in a bad way when I met him. Never thought worse of him for that. You do what you have to do.’ And Goodnight feels an outpouring of sympathy for his other self, haunted, exhausted, clinging to the smoke as the only relief from his trauma. Billy shifts closer, enough that they can read each other’s faces. ‘You’re as hard on yourself as he is. You don’t have to suffer.’ 

Goodnight’s about to argue when the oddity hits him; he gave his pills to Billy, to prove he wasn’t taking them, and now in another time Billy’s holding it out to him as a cure. Do _should_ and _shouldn’t_ have any meaning any more? He takes the cigarette again with a shaking hand, draws it deep and feels it begin, the weight of the world lifted for a while and set far away, out of reach.

He passes it back to Billy and stretches a little. ‘So how long have you been in America?’ 

Billy stares at him for a moment, then huffs a laugh. ‘Makes me feel I’m seeing double. This was how we began, me and Goody, telling tales over a campfire: he’s the only one ever been interested in my story. Took me a long time to tell him.’ 

‘Sorry,’ says Goodnight at once, ‘it’s none of my business.’ 

Billy smiles oddly. ‘But it is, isn’t it? I mean, you’re Goody, from then or now, and what Goody does is ask my story.’ His dark eyes are shrewd. ‘That’s what you did with him in the future, isn’t it?’ And Goodnight remembers the early days, when he’d sometimes despaired of ever really knowing Billy, and how, imperceptibly, he’d let him in, sharing the burden of his past, letting him see the isolation and loneliness behind his polished, successful exterior. 

Billy breathes out more smoke and looks off, over the sleeping herd. ‘Came over eleven, twelve years ago. Worked the railroad, then made a living with these.’ He gestures to the belt of intricately-tooled knives coiled beside him. ‘Took off after a while, moving from place to place; Goody and I crossed paths in ’70. Tried to serve a warrant on me.’ The idea seems to amuse him. ‘Came to an arrangement instead. And…’ He lifts one shoulder. ‘What about you? Do you work for a living?’ 

Goodnight would be insulted if he didn’t feel the truth of it so keenly. ‘I translate books, turn them from English to French.’ 

Billy nods thoughtfully. ‘Makes sense – Goody likes to read.’ 

‘And Billy’ – it seems so odd, to describe him while he’s sitting opposite – ‘Billy’s a doctor, a bone surgeon: he works with people recovering from complex injuries.’ He’s not at all sure how this will register, but Billy seems to understand, though he’s not as impressed as Goodnight expected. 

‘Sounds a bit fancy to me.’ 

‘You’re good at it,’ says Goodnight. ‘Don’t take any nonsense from your patients.’ 

Billy stubs out the end of the cigarette, the fire bright against the fading night, and this time Goodnight’s relaxed enough to shift close. ‘C’mere,’ he says, holding out his arm. Billy settles against him with a sigh, head on his shoulder, and Goody leans his cheek against his hair. It should feel odd, with someone else, but it doesn’t: this is Billy, in every sense, conscious and unconscious, and being close feels right and comforting.

‘You don’t seem very curious about the future.’ The topic seems easier, like this. ‘You haven’t asked what it’s like, or what happens.’ 

He can feel Billy’s shake of derision against his side. ‘What difference would it make? You don’t know what happens to us, to me and Goody, do you? Can you tell us how to find a big pile of cash some robber’s forgotten? Where’s safe for us to go and where’s not? No.’ 

He’s right: what difference can Goodnight make? Tell them to invest in oil? From what he can see, neither of them has anything to invest. Tell them who’ll be the next president? He can see how little it matters here. ‘What did Goody say about it?’ 

Billy sounds dismissive. ‘He said it was just like in that song: no need to work, and you could have anything you wanted for the asking.’ 

‘It’s not always like that.’ How can he begin to explain the concept of a vacation where work is entertainment? 

‘So what is it like?’ 

Put like that, it’s an impossible question. ‘Easier, like you said. Water on tap, electricity, quicker traveling, better medicine. People live longer.’ Honesty compels him to add, ‘As long as you’ve got some money.’ 

‘Not much change, then.’ He can’t blame Billy for seeming unimpressed. ‘Goody said the food was better. Said he tried to bring back some whisky, but he woke up without it.’ 

‘Can’t bring anything with me,’ says Goodnight, thumb moving reflexively, ‘not even a ring.’ 

‘That’s different too, isn’t it?’ Billy’s gaze is sharp. ‘The way you act, the things you say – you can be together?’ 

‘A lot’s changed,’ says Goodnight. ‘Not that it’s all plain sailing, there are always folks who take exception … but yes. I love Billy, and he married me, best day of my life.’ 

‘Rock Candy Mountain,’ says Billy again, a little wistfully, and Goodnight wonders if he’s being unfair, spinning a tale of a different life of acceptance and security and ease to a man who has so little. 

Goodnight tucks his chin into Billy’s hair. ‘You and Goody’ve found a way to be together, though. Think you’ll settle down one day?’ And he wants it for them, wants them to have what he has, a home where they can find a journey’s end. 

He feels Billy’s shrug. ‘Who knows?’ He’s silent for a little while, then says, ‘Goody could do better than this. His family have money, he could go back to them: he doesn’t have to live this way. Going hungry, taking risks. He could get proper work, teach school, maybe, or be a company man.’ 

Goodnight tightens his arm around him. ‘He couldn’t do better than you.’ 

It’s as though he’s speaking for both of them, the time that divides them dissolved into one, but as he meets Billy’s eyes it suddenly feels wrong, leaning together warm and lazy by the fire, and he sees the same recognition in Billy’s face. 

He sits up straight and Billy does the same, turning away awkwardly. ‘Time we turned in.’ He goes off briefly and when he comes back he stretches out on his bedroll on the other side of the fire, pulling a blanket over himself. 

Goodnight hesitates. ‘Should we – take watches?’ It’s like something out of a movie again. 

Billy laughs and tips his hat over his eyes. ‘You sit up if you want to: I guarantee no one’s after the cows.’ 

Goodnight’s not wholly reassured: he sits up, irresolute, listening. Mostly what he hears is the constant background shifting of the cows, but there’s the occasional thud or rustle that has him prickling with nerves. After a while Billy’s voice makes him jump. ‘Just don’t get spooked and start shooting at jackrabbits – if there’s really anyone around, I’ll know.’ 

Goodnight has to laugh, and he settles onto his own bedroll on his back to look up at the stars, so thick and bright it almost seems he could reach up and touch them. Billy’s breathing deepens, mingling with the snuffles of the cows, and Goodnight lets his eyes close, thinking of Billy beside him and his own Billy asleep in their bed, half a mile and a hundred years away.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand thanks to VillaKulla, whose wise advice made all the difference to this chapter and the shape of the fic as a whole!

\---

Goodnight wakes up because he’s cold: the bedcovers seem thin, and there’s no warm body to curl against. He shifts uncomfortably, and it gradually occurs to him that he’s lying on hard ground: _wasn’t I on vacation?_ he thinks foggily. He turns over, hip and back hurting the way they haven’t in years, and opens his eyes to a paling dawn sky. Cows, nearby. The ashes of a fire, and on the other side of it a blanket-covered form. 

He sits up, scalp prickling. _No._ He’s still here. Still _then_. A crow is calling in the distance, harsh and persistent. _I went to sleep, I wake up back home._ He looks around wildly at the empty landscape, then dives for Billy, shaking his ankle. ‘Billy. Billy!’ 

Billy seems to snap awake all at once, and his face lights up. ‘Goody? You’re-' But as he looks at Goodnight the light drains away and his jaw sets. ‘You’re still here.’ He lunges to grab his shoulders, his grip painful. ‘Where’s Goody? What have you done?’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ says Goodnight, because it’s the only thing he can think of to say. ‘I don’t know –‘ 

‘He should be here,’ interrupts Billy, and it’s the first time he’s looked anything other than competent and strong. ‘He goes away and you’re here, then he comes back.’ Goodnight puts a hand on his arm, but Billy shakes it off, the hostility back in his face. ‘I don’t understand. Why has it stopped working?’ 

‘I don’t know,’ says Goodnight, and he’s cold, colder than the morning breeze. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and wills it: this whole morning, the cows, the crow, the bedrolls on the stony ground, everything, should pop like a bubble and leave him where he ought to be, back in reality. But there’s no help for it: he opens his eyes again to the same pale sky, the same croaking bird. ‘There must be a way,’ he says weakly. ‘We can find it. Put it right. We just have to…’ But there’s no way to finish the sentence and he falls silent, Billy staring at him in mute despair.

\---

Billy lies on his back, gazing up at the bar of sunlight slanting across the ceiling. Muffled sounds of activity drift up from outside and the occasional murmur of voices from below, but Goody is still asleep beside him, his breathing slow and steady. Billy holds himself still, gathering his thoughts before Goody wakes. His mind’s made up: they’re going to leave. This – it’s too much. Disturbing enough, the first time, when he’d thought Goody had settled into a bout of extravagant play-acting, cushioned from reality by the hazy embrace of his pills; and then after, to see him so upset, untrusting of his own mind – but that he could have coped with, has coped with: that at least would have been explicable. 

Not this … When he’d woken a second time to a Goodnight careless and cheerful, treating it all with the casual wonder of someone who can’t credit the world around him as true, rather than spend another day ground between belief and disbelief, wondering, he’d done what a man of science should and put it to the test.

The Goody he’s always known carries evidence of the accident that derailed him down his thigh and across his hip: Billy had put in the metal plates to hold his bones together with his own hand, had sutured his flesh, the scars as much a part of their relationship as the rings they’d exchanged. This time he’d let Goody shower alone, but when he emerged, wrapped in a towel, hair curling from the steam and a look of unalloyed bliss on his face, Billy had asked, ‘Can I-‘ 

‘What, sweetheart?’ Goody had asked, and at his proximity, all warm bare flesh and twinkling eyes, Billy had blushed. ‘Now that ain’t the poker face I know,’ Goody had teased, stretching languorously on the bedcover, and Billy had to take a strangled breath. 

‘Show me your hip?’ 

‘Anything for you, cher.’ Goody flipped the towel aside. ‘What exactly are you looking for?’ He grinned provocatively. ‘Man could get the wrong idea.’ 

But Billy’s arousal had vanished instantly: no scars. Not the right ones: a long-healed ridge snaked across this man’s upper thigh, the same site from which Goody’s scars rayed out, but the skin around it which should be raised and pale was unmarred. He stretched out a hand to touch, transfixed: it really wasn’t him.

As Billy’s finger traced gently over the line Goody smiled, oblivious to his turmoil. ‘Long time ago. I told you, didn’t I? When I tried to ride Remy’s horse?’ He put his own hand over Billy’s, his grin warm and intimate, and the contradiction left Billy’s head swimming: here he was, faced with the definitive evidence that this Goodnight was not the man he married, yet everything, scent and touch and instinct, insisting he was the same. 

Above his hip there was a star-shaped pucker, remnant of a bullet wound, and Billy raised his hand to it, irresistibly drawn. ‘Took it in ’65,’ said Goodnight. ‘More like to die from the hospital than the shot.’ 

He bent to kiss Billy’s shoulder, and Billy had to close his eyes to steady himself. ‘1865?’ he asked huskily.

‘End of the war,’ began Goody, but Billy interrupted. ‘You’re really from the 1870s?’ 

‘From?’ asked Goodnight lazily. ‘It’s 1876 now. When I’m awake.’ 

Billy tore his gaze from the scars to take his hands, and look him in the face, urgent. ‘This is 2016. You’ve changed places with Goody. My Goody. He said he went to sleep and woke up in the past, in the 1870s, and he and Billy were herding cows there.’ 

‘He doing my day’s work in the past?’ Goodnight seemed no more than tickled by the idea. ‘You want to go back and do Billy’s, that would be perfect.’ 

‘It’s not a joke. Why aren’t you more upset?’ Billy couldn’t imagine how he could be so calm. 

Goodnight shook his head, amused. ‘This ain’t real.’ He turned Billy’s hands over, thumbs rubbing his palms. ‘I can tell you ain’t really Billy, his hands ain’t never been this soft, like you never drew a gun or broke a man’s nose in your life. Billy’s all over calluses, like me.’ He smiled again, confiding. ‘All this – it’s like life could be but never is, all the good things you imagine – soft clean beds, fresh food like I ain’t tasted in a long while, that shower thing, that’s a gift’ – Billy’s gut had tightened in guilt but Goodnight was warming to his theme – ‘and whisky of the kind East Coast bankers drink, all for the asking. And here I am with you and Sam having a good time. Inside of my own head ain’t usually so enjoyable.’ 

He’d been so amused by it all, eyes sparkling blue, Billy had felt like a traitor for trying to disabuse him. ‘Nothing about this is imaginary. You’ve woken up in the future, a hundred years and more from when you were.’ 

He put his hands on Goodnight’s arms, expecting him to protest, to panic, but to his utter astonishment Goodnight laughed, a wholehearted guffaw of entertainment. ‘Don’t seem much like the future to me – don’t see no underwater cities or flying islands or trips to the moon. I’d think the future would have a bit more to it than working cattle and spending the night in the saloon.’ 

The realisation had been a punch to the gut. Of course he wouldn’t see it, not in a place reconstructed with meticulous care so modern men and women could play at being in the past. A wild part of him had imagined taking Goodnight away, showing him skyscrapers and airplanes, cars and shopping malls, the whole technicolour whirlwind of the future, but what would that achieve? If Billy trusted even a little that Goody really was back in the past, the last thing he should do is upset the delicate equilibrium that seemed to exist in Ezekiel’s Crossing.

So he’d had no choice but to go along with it, spend another day with a different Goodnight at his side, genial and florid, spinning yarns about shooting contests in San Jose and chasing outlaws along the Brazos, treating the women with old-fashioned courtesy and joking with the ranch hands. Billy had looked on anxiously, convinced now he know that everyone else must see the difference too; but no one, no one, had questioned him. Why should they? This Goodnight _was_ Goodnight, in voice, mannerisms, appearance; if even Billy found it so hard to be sure, how could any of the people here, when they’ve only known him for a handful of days? 

But the strain of it… Not just the constant attention, sitting or riding or working with one ear always alert for Goodnight’s lapses of knowledge or oddities of attitude, poised to interrupt or divert a conversation; not even the strain of knowing, knowing that something inexplicable, something so stupidly impossible, is happening and he can’t tell anyone about it without making both of them seem crazy. No, most of all, the strain of missing Goody, of worrying about him and, selfishly, for himself. He needs Goodnight, always has, to put him at ease among strangers, to carry him in his sunny orbit, and now this strange situation has left him doubly bereft, aching for his husband’s comfort while he struggles to protect a stranger. 

But today, Goody will be back, his Goody, spilling over with an account of another day in the past, and Billy can insist, _We leave_. He wants to put this dreamscape behind them, this place where dressed-up guests move against the backdrop of the town like revivified ghosts, or, no, like flickering screen images of a past that never existed; he wants to go back to the real world, to home and stability and certainty. _Today_ , he thinks, _we pack up and go. Hitch a ride on a trailer back to the ranch, then call a cab for the airport and home_. 

 

The bar of light on the ceiling has drifted as the sun has risen, and Billy rolls over to wake his beloved. Goody’s face is still relaxed in sleep as Billy surveys him: hair dusted with grey, one of Billy’s old T-shirts and – he smiles slightly - no ring on the hand next to his head on the pillow. He’d found it yesterday, tangled among the covers, and carried it all day in the pocket over his heart; when they lay down to sleep he’d placed it carefully on the chest, ready to slip onto Goody’s finger again, and the thought of how Goody would look when he did warm in his chest. 

But even as he thinks it, his smile begins to fade. Where’s the pale band against the tan of Goody’s finger? He looks closer. Surely Goody isn’t so lined? Isn’t his hair a little shorter, less ragged? Billy’s heart starts to pound dully: he has to be wrong. 

He reaches towards Goody’s shoulder, then stops, but the movement is enough to rouse him and Goody opens eyes still foggy with sleep to squint against the light. ‘It’s late, are we-‘ He makes to sit up, then focuses on Billy’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’ 

‘You’re still here,’ he says, barely a whisper. ‘Where’s Goody?’ 

Goodnight flops back against the pillows, unconcerned. ‘Still dreaming: nothing beats lying in bed all morning while the sun’s up.’ 

‘No,’ says Billy, panic lurching in his stomach. ‘This isn’t right. Goody spent a day in the past, but then he woke up here again. Why is it you, not him?’ 

‘Hush now.’ Goodnight holds out a hand to him. ‘Ain’t no call to be getting agitated.’ He stretches luxuriously. ‘Lie down and keep me company.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Disbelief, panic and guilt at the memory that hovers unspoken between them combine to make Billy’s temper explode without warning. ‘You’re not dreaming.’ He thumps the bed and sets it ringing. ‘Look around you.’ He jumps up to throw the window open. ‘Listen. Feel.’ When he turns to look at the man in the bed, all he sees is a stranger. ‘You should have gone.’ He knows it’s unfair, but underneath the anger is the relentless churn of despair. 

Though the sun’s still bright Goodnight’s face loses its light. ‘You telling me I’m not wanted?’ 

‘Of course you’re not! You don’t belong here.’ There’s nothing to hold onto, this man who isn’t Goody, this room that’s both _then_ and _now_. ‘I can’t – this should be over…’ 

‘Finally decided you want rid of me?’ Goodnight barks out a humourless laugh. ‘Nightmares I do understand.’ 

‘This is not a dream,’ grits out Billy between clenched teeth. Goodnight stares at him, then suddenly slaps himself, the sound like the crack of a pistol shot. 

‘Don’t-' Billy reaches out, shocked despite himself, but Goodnight ignores him.

‘Don’t work, does it?’ He leaps out of bed and starts dragging on his clothes. ‘Wonder if the whiskey’s turned sour too.’ 

‘Goody-' starts Billy, but Goodnight rounds on him. ‘I ain’t the man you want, you said it, and you don’t get to tell me what to do.’ 

It’s disturbing: so far he’s seen a playful talkative Goodnight that’s like the man he knows, but now he’s seeing someone harder: a drifter, a soldier, a man from a less forgiving era. Goodnight rifles through the pockets of the coat he’s just put on, swears, then grabs his hat and the door shuts behind him. 

Shit. _Shit_. The room seems to spin around him and Billy squeezes his eyes shut: he can’t afford to fall apart. He desperately wants this not to be happening, but it is and he can’t let Goodnight walk around alone in this mood. 

_Calm_ , he tells himself, and it works, a little, while he throws on his clothes and splashes his face with cold water; he’s at the door when a flash of sunlight on top of the chest snags his attention and he has to swallow a lump in his throat – Goody’s ring, twinkling from the wreckage of the morning. He goes back to pick it up, grips it hard in his fist for a moment, then tucks it into his pocket. 

 

He clatters down the stairs and into the dining-room, but there’s no sign of Goodnight: he must have been serious about the whisky. Memory tugs at him: Goody, agitated, pushing the pill box into his hands... Billy shoves through the door, ready to follow him down to the saloon, and nearly cannons into Sam, who’s standing on the sidewalk with a puzzled expression. 

‘What’s up with Goody?’ he asks. ‘He OK?’ His eyes flick up and down and Billy realises how dishevelled he must look. ‘Did you guys quarrel or something?’ 

‘No. I mean…’ The unexpected sympathy makes him sag. ‘No, he’s not OK.’ 

Sam takes him by the arm, lowering his voice. ‘He’s not seriously starting in on drinking this time of day?’ 

‘He’s upset.’ Billy can see from Sam’s expression that this isn’t going to wash. Sociable, friendly Goody, getting drunk and miserable in the bar first thing in the morning? Out on the range the conversation’s disjointed enough that his occasional misunderstandings are easily passed over. But Goodnight throwing back spirits and growling recriminations? How long can he hope to cover up what’s happened with stories of immersive acting? 

‘Look.’ He takes a deep breath. On the one hand, talking about it’s a stupid idea, Sam’s not going to believe him and it’ll just make him think they’re both crazy. On the other hand, how long can he stand this without cracking? Sam strikes him as a level-headed type who’ll at least hear him out, and the relief, of being able to share the knowledge of what’s happened… ‘Can I… come over here.’ He takes Sam away from the boarding-house, along the sidewalk where they won’t be overheard. ‘Remember Monday night? Goody telling you all those stories about how you and he lived in the past?’ 

‘Of course I remember,’ says Sam, and Billy’s courage almost fails in the face of such earnest concern. 

How can he say this out loud? ‘The Goodnight you were talking to then was different.’ 

Sam furrows his brow, uneasy. ‘Different how? You mean, like dissociation? Multiple personalities?’ 

_I wish it were that simple_. Billy braces himself. ‘He was a different person. You met Goody, my Goody I’m married to, but this Goodnight, he’s another Goodnight from the past. An 1800s Goodnight.’ Sam stares at him blankly, and Billy can’t stop himself from babbling. ‘They changed places, on Monday, and then Goody came back, then they changed again yesterday, and it should have been the same-' 

‘Are you feeling OK?’ Sam’s concerned gaze is now focused on him, and Billy feels obscurely ashamed, as though he’s been caught out in a deception. 

‘I know what it sounds like. But it’s what happened. The first day here, Goody woke up in the past and this Goodnight was here. And you met him.’ 

Sam looks hopelessly confused. ‘But that was him: hell, we’d just ridden over together, all dressed up in our cowboy outfits, and he was spinning yarns to make it all seem real. Hyperactive imagination.’ 

Billy shakes his head. ‘I thought so too, I really did. But the next day Goody woke up and said he’d spent a day in the past, when the town was still working.’ He sees Sam’s expression. ‘I thought it was fantasy, hallucination, it’s not someth- I mean, it’s what we both thought, but the two of them, they’re not the same. Not when you really look.’ 

Sam comes closer, a hand on Billy’s shoulder. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re telling me, hand on heart, that the man I just walked past is a Goodnight from the 1800s. Who’s just like the Goodnight I know in every detail?’ 

Billy nods dumbly. Hearing himself trying to explain has shown him it’s hopeless – no one’s going to credit this. ‘It happened again yesterday, the switch, and it’s really not him, but when I woke up – Goody was supposed to be back today, but he’s not. And it’s all – I said the wrong thing, and now he’s angry, and he doesn’t think any of this is real…’ 

Sam squeezes his shoulder and Billy’s never been more grateful. ‘Come on.’ There’s something too carefully indulgent on his face for Billy to think he’s convinced, but at least he’s sympathetic. ‘I’m not saying I believe you, but if it is Goody down there in the saloon he could use some company, and if it isn’t – well, I’m not going to pass up the chance to meet a man from the past and ask him some questions, am I?’ 

Billy manages the faintest of smiles at that, and to his surprise Sam slings an arm around his shoulders as they head down the sidewalk.

 

Goodnight is in the Diamondback, hunched over a table with a tumbler of whisky he’s managed to procure; he looks up warily at their approach, but lightens when he sees Sam. He lifts the glass to toast him. ‘Liquor’s still good – you still my friend?’ 

‘Of course,’ says Sam, ‘and that’s why I’ll tell you coffee would be wiser than whisky if you’ve skipped breakfast.’ 

‘Enough times you’ve told me that,’ grouses Goodnight, but he does put the glass down again. ‘If I drink enough maybe I’ll wake up where I should be again.’ 

Sam sits down opposite him, and Billy awkwardly hooks out a chair to one side. ‘Where is it you should be?’ 

‘What kind of question’s that?’ Goodnight squints at him, his gaze flickering from Sam to Billy and back again. ‘Show me your neck,’ he demands, suddenly urgent. 

‘Huh?’ says Sam. 

‘Your neck.’ Goodnight insists, putting his hand to his own collar. ‘Show me your scars.’ 

‘How’d you –' Sam unsnaps his shirt collar and pulls it open to reveal his neck and chest, the skin smooth. 

Goodnight reaches out a hand but stops short of touching him. ‘Where’d they go?’ 

‘Scar’s here,’ says Sam, tugging the material aside to reveal a short raised line. ‘Got in an argument with a redneck when I was in college.’ 

‘That’s not it,’ objects Goodnight. ‘You got big scars, all up here’ – his hand is at his throat – ‘from the rope.’ 

‘The-' Sam looks baffled at first, then horrified understanding breaks on his face. 

‘You really ain’t him.’ Goodnight looks at Billy, then back to Sam, despair on his face, and reaches for his glass. He downs it in one and turns to look for another. 

‘You shouldn’t,’ says Billy before he can stop himself. Goodnight turns on him with a hostility he doesn’t recognise. 

‘If this ain’t a dream and I’m on my own here, I’ll be the judge of what’s best. You ain’t Billy any more than he’s Sam.’ 

‘We are,’ says Sam with more confidence than Billy expected, ‘but we’re not the men you know. We’re Billy and Sam from the 2000s: I’m a schoolteacher and he’s a surgeon.’ 

For the first time Goodnight looks as though he might be persuaded. ‘That’s what Billy said, but it don’t make no sense to me.’ He leans back in his chair, eyes narrowed. ‘You say this is real, but what kind of world is it, all playing around and eating, everyone handing out stuff for free?’ 

It’s a fair question, Billy has to admit. ‘It’s a vacation. That’s-' 

‘I know what a vacation is,’ snaps Goodnight. ‘Rich folk go off to Europe, or to New York. Punching cows in a one-horse town isn’t anyone’s vacation.’ 

Billy casts a despairing glance at Sam. ‘This isn’t how we really- we came here to see the country, to live’ – _simply_ , he’s about to say, before he realises how stupid it is. What’s simple about this, catered meals following them in a truck, hot showers and spa treatments, maids to clean the bathroom and hang fresh towels for them while they’re out? ‘We came here to live like you did.’ 

Goodnight laughs in disbelief. ‘You want to work as a cowhand when you don’t have to? Ain’t hardly what I’d choose.’

Sam leans forward eagerly. ‘All this time, I thought you were Goody, the Goodnight I knew. Tell me proper who you are.’ 

‘Been a lot of things. Soldier for the Greys.’ Goodnight sighs at what he sees in Sam’s face. ‘Left that man behind on the battlefield. Been a lot of things since – bounty-hunter, showman, gambler and right now money’s tight enough that I’m a cowhand. Enough to make my daddy turn in his mausoleum.’ The spark of dark humour burns out quickly. 

He looks Sam up and down again and shakes his head. ‘You ain’t so like Sam. Even less than he’s like Billy. Never thought I’d see it, but you’re both real soft.’ 

‘Soft,’ says Sam, half-insulted, but Goodnight nods solemnly.

‘You say you’re a schoolteacher and you seem like it, man with clean hands who spends his time with books; hell, it’s what I’d have been myself if it had all been different. But – Sam Chisolm I know’s a force of nature. First time we met he took my side fighting against five men, and I don’t know many now wouldn’t back down sooner than face him.’ 

‘I spend all my time fighting and shooting?’ Sam looks dubious. 

Goodnight shrugs. ‘Bounty-hunting ain’t a business for retiring types. Never saw you pull a gun where it wasn’t merited, and you’ve a will to see justice done that makes everyone jump to your tune.’ 

‘He sounds a better man than me,’ says Sam ruefully. 

Goodnight turns to Billy. ‘And you – you don’t look like you’ve ever gone hungry or lived hard.’ 

Billy understands Sam’s defensiveness. ‘You make that sound like a bad thing.’ 

Goodnight studies him coolly. ‘Billy Rocks I know had to make everything for himself with his fists and his knives.’ 

‘Knives I do know something about,’ says Billy, nettled. 

‘You still looking for that trip upcountry?’ Red Harvest’s voice surprises them all: he’s standing in the doorway, outlined against the morning sun, too dark to see his expression. 

‘Of course,’ says Billy – he’d forgotten, in the confusion. 

‘If you are, we need to be out. Jack’s left the gear at the stables for you.’ 

Goodnight and Sam both look to Billy questioningly. ‘Fishing,’ he explains. ‘Red’s going to take us right out on the reservation.’ If Goodnight’s amenable, Billy can’t see a reason not to go: at least it’ll be an experience of the kind he’s used to, out in the wild, and as far as he’s concerned, the fewer people around the better. 

‘Indian territory?’ Goodnight looks troubled. ‘Sure that’s wise?’ Billy darts a glance to the door, but if Red’s heard he doesn’t show it, just jerks his head and turns to leave. 

Sam claps a hand on Goodnight’s shoulder. ‘Be better for you than a day pickling yourself in here.’ 

Goodnight smiles despite himself. ‘Some things don’t change, and that’s the truth.’ He stands up and reaches for his hat. ‘Drinking don’t seem to be solving anything, I’ll admit, and fishing I do understand.’ 

‘I’ll have a word with Jack and be along to join you,’ promises Sam, and as he ushers Goodnight out Billy takes the chance to murmur to him, ‘You want to join us? Now you know?’ 

Sam surprises him with a flashing smile. ‘A real live Civil War veteran I can talk to? Couldn’t shake me off if you tried.’ 

\---

Ten minutes later Billy and Goodnight are over at the stables: it’s the authentic cowboy experience, Billy tells himself resignedly – maybe he can wash in the river later. When they arrive there’s no sign of Jack or Red, but Mariah and Abbie are there, heads together as Abbie helps shorten Mariah’s stirrups. 

‘Thought we were late,’ says Mariah cheerfully as Goodnight tips his hat. ‘Think that’s your stuff over there.’ 

There is indeed a small pile of camping gear and two cases with expensive-looking fishing tackle: Billy sorts through it in the dusty sunbeams while Goodnight busies himself with saddles and bridles. 

‘Off for a morning ride?’ he asks Abbie politely, and she nods eagerly. 

‘Over to Fire Ridge to help round up some stragglers: Jack said we can practice our roping.’ 

Goodnight’s eyebrows shoot up and Billy hastily stuffs a bundle of tent and cooking gear into his arms before he can say anything inappropriate. 

Fortunately they’re interrupted by Frank, strolling in to start the day. There’s clearly no love lost between him and the women: Mariah mounts up, deliberately ignoring him and turns her horse’s head. ‘C’mon, A’. 

Abbie has one foot in the stirrup; ‘Let me help you there,’ offers Frank as he passes. 

‘I don’t need-' starts Abbie, but, ‘There you go’; Frank boosts her into the saddle before she can finish. 

Billy sees it, they all must, in the way she stiffens, her flush obvious even in the dim light: the hand on her ass under the guise of helping. It’s sly, deniable, and Frank’s already sauntering away looking pleased with himself. 

‘You son of a bitch,’ growls Mariah, jumping to the ground. 

It’s exactly the kind of situation that takes Billy out of his depth: you can’t let him laugh it off, she’s right, but the awkwardness paralyses him – Goody’s the one he relies on to confront or negotiate. 

Now Goodnight, a man from a simpler age, simply steps forward at Mariah’s side. ‘Seems to me you’ll be apologising to the lady,’ he says, and though his voice is soft he’s planted himself deliberately. 

Frank turns around, a smirk on his face. ‘Apologise?’ 

‘You asshole,’ spits Mariah, ‘we all saw what you did.’ She glances up at Abbie protectively. 

‘What are you talking about?’ Frank’s all injured innocence. ‘Just being sociable. No need to get your panties in a bunch.’ 

Mariah chokes in rage, but ‘I know a lowlife when I see one,’ says Goodnight, sharp, ‘and I said, you’ll be apologising.’ 

‘You assaulted my girlfriend.’ At Mariah’s direct accusation Frank’s face darkens. 

‘Don’t care for what you’re implying.’ He steps closer, lifting his chin. ‘Trying to make trouble for regular guys.’ 

‘Ain’t having a man take that attitude with me.’ Goodnight squares up to Frank, staring him down. 

‘This is not about two guys dick-measuring.’ Mariah, frustrated, tries to elbow her way past Goodnight, but he and Frank ignore her. I should break this up, thinks Billy, call someone, do something, but the others are as frozen as he is.

Goodnight folds back his coat. ‘Ain’t debating,’ he warns, and to Billy’s horror there at his hip is a gun, a real six-gun. 

He hooks his fingers casually in the belt beside it; Frank scoffs. ‘Still playing cowboys? Going to draw on me?’ He mimes drawing, shooting and blowing away the smoke. 

‘You had more sense,’ says Goodnight, and now there’s real menace behind his words, ‘you’d stop flapping that lip and do as you’re instructed.’ 

Billy looks from face to face: of course they don’t understand that he means it, that this is a man who’ll kill in cold blood without fear of law or retribution. 

‘Get a fucking grip,’ says Frank, ‘you’re not in a movie now,’ and before he can react Billy sees it as though in slow motion - Goodnight’s hand dipping to his side, Mariah’s step back, his own croak of ‘Stop!’ and the dawn of understanding on Frank’s face...

... then Jack is there, shouldering between them. ‘Am I going to have to throw you both in the horse trough?’ he demands; the tone’s light, but his bulk lends him presence and the tension breaks immediately. ‘Don’t know what the argument was, but I won’t see it come to threats.’ 

Goodnight steps back and the colour flows back into Frank’s cheeks. ‘Don’t know what his problem is-’ he begins, but Mariah interrupts him.

‘The problem is that you’re a creep who thinks being a _good old boy_ means you can get away with it,’ she hisses. 

Frank draws breath to defend himself, but Goodnight fixes him with a cold stare. ‘Wouldn’t think you’d defend a man groping at a respectable woman,’ he says to Jack. 

Jack looks narrowly at Frank, who flushes. ‘Just a misunderstanding: sorry if people are upset.’ 

It’s a weaselly apology at best, and it doesn’t improve Mariah’s temper. ‘Don’t know how this turned into an argument between two men,’ she starts, ‘and I don’t see why he’s getting off the hook-' but Abbie breaks in to soothe her. 

‘He apologised, baby, no point pushing it.’ 

‘You headed over to Fire Ridge?’ Jack asks her gravely, and at her nod he turns to Frank. ‘You’d best be helping Brant with the tallying: I’ll take you over on the trailer.’ 

Frank ducks away obediently. ‘Won’t be pretending it didn’t happen,’ warns Mariah darkly. 

‘Goodnight, Billy.’ Jack’s gaze flicks over Goodnight and settles on Billy. ‘Red’s set and waiting.’ 

‘On our way,’ says Billy, and Jack, apparently satisfied, follows Frank outside. 

Mariah mounts up again, but as she passes she leans down to Goodnight. ‘I get that you think you’re being gallant, but a display of toxic masculinity isn’t the answer.’ 

Billy exchanges glances with Abbie, but before either of them can intervene Goodnight looks her up and down, ‘Ain’t my place to say so, but maybe if you didn’t dress like a man and curse like a-' 

‘No need to make this worse-'; ‘Quarrelling’s not what we should-'; Abbie and Billy together drown out the rest of his sentence.

\---

Goodnight’s obviously feeling hard done by as he stows the gear behind his saddle with practised skill. ‘No one would blame me for calling out a dog like that to a fair fight.’ 

Billy closes his eyes, engulfed by a wave of unreality. ‘This isn’t like – you can’t go shooting people here.’ 

Goodnight shrugs, unrepentant. ‘Well, I ain’t going to stand up and quarrel with Jack Horne. He ain’t a better shot than me, but he’s a tough customer.’ He swings into the saddle and waits for Billy to join him. ‘There’s many say he ain’t entirely in touch with reality no more, what happened with his family unhinged him, but that story about the three hundred scalps, that’s true. Sam said so.’ 

Red Harvest, isn’t hard to spot, waiting in the shade of a tree with Mike and Chloe at the town limit, and when Sam joins them they form up, Red in the lead, for the day’s ride. Heading into reservation territory proper takes them from the well-used trails around the town into wilder country as they move steadily north and east: at first it’s the same open scrub, but after a while they start to see stands of trees and thicker grass, and a smudge of darker green on the horizon to mark the course of the river. There are no farms or ranches out here, and no roads, just an open vista of the kind Goodnight must be used to, and only the distant white ribbon of a plane’s vapour trail in the sky to betray the age. _No wonder he finds it so hard to believe_. 

The long ride’s a blessing in one way: it’s a distraction for both of them, and certainly Goodnight seems calmer – he and Sam are riding side by side, absorbed in conversation. It’s the first leisure Billy’s had since he woke up, and he deliberately drifts to the rear of their group to give himself time to think. What’s gone wrong? Why isn’t Goody back here? He should be – in the past for a day on Monday, back on Tuesday, in the past on Wednesday: why has the pattern failed? And what did Goody think, when he woke up with the other Billy again? What’s he doing there? Fragments of Goody’s description come back to him – _the boss made us work like dogs, everyone was dirty_ – how is he managing, adrift in the past? At least he has someone to take care of him, Billy comforts himself, until it changes again and he can come back. When, though? What will it take? 

It has to be something about the scenario, the then-and-now of it, but maybe he’s wrong to assume that there is a simple pattern to it. Maybe now it’s two days about, and he’ll wake up tomorrow with Goody at his side. Unless… The thought comes small and faint, and he wants to keep it that way, doesn’t want to let it grow. _Jack Horne and his scalps. Gunfights in the street. Another Billy Rocks, carving his way with fists and knives_. 

He realises he’s staring sightlessly at the two riders ahead of him, black and grey side by side, and despair threatens to engulf him for the second time. He should be able to catch them up, ride up alongside them and find his friend and the man he loves. Goodnight sweeps out one arm in a theatrical gesture as Sam throws his head back and laughs: how can it not be him? 

_Torturing yourself like this isn’t helping_. Billy closes his eyes to banish the vision, and when he opens them he finds that Red Harvest has drawn up alongside and is watching him curiously. ‘Feeling OK?’ 

For one wild moment Billy’s tempted to confide in him – Sam had believed him, hadn’t he? – but he stamps the feeling down. ‘Fine.’ 

Red raises his eyebrows. ‘Got a fair way to ride still.’ 

‘Glad to get out of town,’ says Billy, with more feeling than he intends. 

‘Not such a cowboy enthusiast as some?’ Red’s not the conversationalist Jack is, and it’s odd to hear him probe, but he’s not wrong; Goodnight’s said enough about the other Billy to confirm his suspicions about the past. 

‘Easier to be enthusiastic about old times when you think you’d be top of the tree,’ he says, and Red cracks a tiny smile. ‘Word.’

They’ve drifted closer behind Goodnight and Sam without realising, and their conversation fills the silence, clear to both of them. ‘…did people take it, black man telling them what to do?’ asks Sam.

Goodnight seems to consider. ‘Always some that take it bad, but then there’s some will take anything bad. Billy, ‘cause they think he’s Chinese, me for being a Southerner, seen men pick a fight over being Irish or Mexican. But most folks ain’t looking for trouble, they want to make a living and go to church on Sunday, so mostly they treat you with respect.’ He laughs, teasing. ‘’Course, being right handy with your pistol don’t hurt.’ 

Billy feels himself flush: to him it seems so obviously strange: surely Red can’t believe this is still playacting? But when he ventures a glance Red won’t meet his eye: he seems … not suspicious or confused, but – concerned? Anxious? ‘You-‘ he starts, but leaves the sentence unfinished; it’s unusual to see his normal impassive manner perturbed. ‘Better make sure we’re headed right,’ he adds abruptly, and kicks up his horse to take him to the head of their line. 

Billy stares after him, puzzled; then he remembers. Goody – the real Goody – had said, how he’d spoken to Red in the schoolhouse. _I kept thinking he was going to let me into some big secret_. He’d been convinced that Red knew more than he was willing to tell and was skirting around it: is he anxious because he’s seen this happen before?

\---

It’s a long ride, as Red promised, into the afternoon before they reach their goal, a stretch of river where the water runs broad and fast, foaming against the rocks and eddying into smooth pools. Billy’d be happy to set up camp and take a break, but Mike, clearly in his element, has Red pointing out the best spots as soon as his gear’s unloaded. His enthusiasm’s infectious, and soon everyone’s setting flies and casting; even Goodnight strips off coat and vest and wades in to join them. 

Catching fish to cook over a fire and boasting about it should, Billy reckons, be within his compass, so he needn’t worry about leaving him with Sam and the others; he takes himself off to set up their tent, then brews coffee on the camping stove. When it’s done he wanders a little way upriver until he finds a sunny clearing where he can nurse his cup and brood.

It’s so peaceful, just the rush of the river and distant voices, birds calling above and leaves rustling in the breeze, he can almost imagine everything is normal. _Goody_ , he thinks, _Goody, are you here?_ Maybe he’s right beside him, squatting in the same sunny clearing, close enough to touch if he could only reach across a hundred years. Missing him is a constant ache, mixed with pointless self-recrimination: I shouldn’t have agreed to this – but Goody had been so enthusiastic; if we’d left on Tuesday – but Goody was the one who said no… There has to be a way to put this right.

He’s a long time there, turning it fruitlessly over in his mind, until the scuff of footsteps and swish of branches rouses him from his thoughts, and he looks up to see Goodnight standing, a little tentative, at the edge of the clearing. He’s in shirt-sleeves pants wet to the thigh, and he offers Billy a hopeful smile. ‘Mind some company?’ 

Billy motions to the place beside him and shows his empty cup. ‘Can’t offer you coffee.’ 

Goodnight grins ruefully. ‘Normally I’d be pulling out a flask of liquor to share, but it ain’t on me.’ He sits down with a grunt. ‘What you said this morning-‘ 

‘I shouldn’t have been so-‘ says Billy at once, but Goodnight waves a hand to hush him. 

‘Was a strange thing to hear, can’t gainsay that. But being out here – well, it all feels real enough: water’s cold and wet, and if you catch your foot on a rock pulling in the line you feel it: and that young woman was taking pictures bright as day and they moved-‘ He holds up a finger to stop Billy interrupting. ‘I ain’t going to say that this is the future, but it’s a different place, I’ll agree that. I’ve talked to Sam some, and he ain’t him, or ‘least he’s a Sam grown up different, and so I guess I should speak to you.’ His gaze runs over Billy and his face turns affectionate. ‘You’re just like him. Mostly.’ 

Billy raises an eyebrow. ‘Guessing that’s not a compliment.’ 

Goodnight nudges his shoulder, the intimacy unthinking. ‘No. What I said – you’re like him, but you’re not.’ He pauses to arrange his thoughts, and now his expression is sad. ‘You’re as handsome as he is, Billy’s the most beautiful man I ever met. Ain’t never been nothing compared to him. But my Billy, he’s tough, had to be: he worked the railroad, and he fought his way free in blood and rage. He takes what life throws at him, never complains.’ 

‘More than I can claim,’ says Billy awkwardly. 

Goodnight nods. ‘Or me. I always say, if I could I’d give him the best of everything, fine meals and a big house and good clothes, and he always laughs at that, because we’re both as poor as church mice. But seeing you’ – Goodnight raises a hand as if to touch his cheek, then stops, self-conscious – ‘you’re what he could have been if life weren’t so hard. If he’d had enough to eat, and not had to work and fight and struggle. I don’t mean – I’m glad for you, in this world, but it makes me think how different it all could have been for him.’ 

‘For you too,’ says Billy, struck with pity for this careworn Goodnight, lines of sorrow cut deep in his face. Is it fair, he wonders, for him to live just a taste of a life he and Billy will never have? 

Goodnight shakes his head. ‘What I’ve suffered I deserve: plenty in my ledger I have to account for. But Billy, he don’t deserve any of it.’ 

He falls silent for a while, then asks with resigned amusement, ‘Your Goody, he as useless as me?’ 

Billy laughs. ‘Hardly useless. You’re the best of any of us, best rider, best shot, can drink us under the table.’ 

Goodnight looks unconvinced. ‘Place like this, maybe. But your Goody, I’m guessing he ain’t the practical type? Needs you to look out for him?’ 

It’s just so hard not to fall into their usual easy intimacy; how can he not, when this man is sitting next to him with Goody’s scent, his voice, his smile? ‘That’s what everyone thinks. Goody – he was in an accident, a bad one: I was looking for the scars he has. It took him a long time to get over, changed the way he sees the world.’ 

‘Like me,’ says Goodnight. ‘Ain’t been right since the war. Can’t shake it off, it follows me round, and sometimes I’m right back there.’ He bites the words off as though to stop himself saying more. 

‘PTSD,’ says Billy, with another rush of compassion. Goody now, with his pills, Goodnight then, drinking to stop himself remembering… 

‘Seems like you could find fifty of us and we’d all be hopeless cases.’ 

Billy puts a hand on his arm. ‘That’s not true.’ Right now he couldn’t say who he’s talking to, this Goody or his own. ‘People think that - they see me, doing an important job, making money, living up to what’s expected, and Goody sitting at home writing, and they think it’s all one way. But’ – how to explain it? The times he’d locked himself alone in a hotel room at a conference, or gone walking alone in a strange city rather than face a gathering of strangers. ‘Goody – he makes everything easy. He likes people, and they like him, and he makes it easy for me. Don’t know what my life would be like without him.’ 

‘Well now,’ says Goodnight. ‘Do some standing up for Billy, but that’s because most folks treat him so bad. Won’t stop to see the man he is.’ This time he doesn’t hesitate as he reaches to tuck a strand of hair behind Billy’s ear, a gesture so powerfully private between them.

He shakes his head again. ‘It really is another life here, ain’t it? Me sitting on my ass and writing books, Sam says, and you a medical man, setting bones: house of our own, and’ – he looks hesitant. ‘Sam, he keeps saying, _husband_ , but that don’t hardly seem likely.’ 

Billy turns his hand to show him his ring. ‘It’s true.’ He fishes in his pocket and shows him the other ring, bright in the slanting sun. ‘This is Goody’s. It stays here, when he changes.’ Another pang strikes him, at the thought of Goody adrift in the past without even this tiny fragment of their reality to anchor him. ‘He hates to take it off.’ 

Goodnight reaches as though to touch it, then raises his head, a question in his eyes; at Billy’s nod he picks up the ring, holding it delicately in his fingertips. ‘It has our initials inside, and the date we married,’ Billy tells him. 

Goodnight turns it to read the engraving, then lets it rest on his palm. When he says, ‘I’ve thought, a few times…’ it’s as though he’s speaking to himself. He looks so wistful, and as tired as Billy feels, the emotion and the wrenching strangeness taking their toll. 

‘Lie down,’ suggests Billy, and when Goodnight stretches out he beckons him to lay his head in his lap. 

Goodnight sighs. ‘Should be herding cows, not lying in the sun.’ He cracks a smile. ‘Maybe I’ll wake up with Wetherall cursing me out for napping on the job.’ 

‘Worth a try,’ says Billy. He yawns himself, and Goodnight says sleepily, ‘Don’t you go changing too.’ 

‘Hush,’ says Billy, stroking a lock of hair from his brow, and he goes on gently threading his fingers through Goodnight’s hair as the lines in his face gradually smooth out and he begins to doze.

\--

When he wakes with a jump the sun’s low and Goodnight still a weight against his leg, sleeping. Billy listens: he can’t hear any voices, only the distant rush of water, but there’s a scent of woodsmoke in the air. 

A movement at the other side of the clearing snags his attention and Red Harvest steps forward from the trees. He puts a finger to his lips, but Billy must have tensed enough to make Goodnight come stretching awake too. When he sees they have company he moves hurriedly to set a distance between them, but Red waves a hand at him in reassurance as he comes to squat down in front of them. 

‘Came to find you,’ he says distractedly. He looks from Goodnight to Billy and back again, brow creased, then, obviously making a decision, he addresses Goodnight directly. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ 

It’s so perfectly poised, neither of them knows how to take it. ‘Where should I be?’ Goodnight asks, a little hostile. 

‘Back in the ghost town,’ says Red. ‘You’re a ghost, aren’t you?’ He looks not curious and sceptical, like Sam, but truly worried. 

‘He’s not a ghost,’ says Billy, ‘he’s real.’ 

‘But not right.’ 

‘You know about this.’ It’s a statement, not a question, and Red’s mouth tightens. ‘You told Goody, about your friend who vanished.’ 

Red’s gesture is dismissive. ‘He probably ran off. Kids do. But…’ He looks back to Goodnight. ‘Tell me who you are.’ 

‘I’m Goodnight Robicheaux,’ says Goodnight. ‘Me and Billy were working in Zeke’s Crossing, and one morning I woke up here. Thought it was a dream, but then I came back, and Billy here says it isn’t.’ 

‘Two of you?’ Red looks confused. 

‘Goody met me, in the past…’ It’s just too much to try to explain. ‘Just tell us what you know. Has it happened before?’ 

‘There are stories…’ Red trails off, and the two of them sit silent, waiting. ‘Years ago, I was too young to remember, but a man came out of there, a warrior with his face painted. He came on foot, said he’d been locked up, in the town, but when he woke up it was empty and the door open. He was looking for his village, his family.’ Red looks at Goodnight. ‘No one knew him: he said he lived here, but the people he asked for, they were all dead long ago. People thought he was crazy.’ 

‘What happened to him?’ Billy’s throat is dry. 

‘He took a horse and went off, to track his people down.’ Red won’t look at them. ‘He never came back. The ghost warrior, they call him.’

Goodnight seizes Red’s arm, aghast. ‘You saying he never went back? Just … wandered round lost forever? And I’ll be stuck here too, never see Billy again?’ 

‘Goody,’ says Billy urgently, but Goodnight ignores him. ‘I’m being punished. All those men I took from their families: this is what I deserve.’ 

‘No.’ Red looks to Billy; he’s sure he can see his own panic. ‘What I’m saying is I told your Goodnight wrong. I thought, he might have seen… So I told him to come out here, keep out of harm’s way. It would have worked. But if you’re here, you’ – he nods at Goodnight – ‘and not him, then you need to be in the town, to change back.’

‘But we were,’ protests Billy, ‘last night, and it didn’t happen; I thought Goody would be back this morning, but he wasn’t.’ 

Red looks confused. ‘That’s what it is – sleeping in the town.’ 

‘Sleeping.’ Billy’s thoughts are racing, and the look on Goodnight’s face tells him he’s had the same idea. 

‘Think your Goodnight didn’t make it to bed? Passed out in the saloon, maybe?’ 

Goody slumped over a table? He can’t really picture it. ‘Thought you said your Billy would take care of him.’ 

Goodnight’s brow furrows. ‘He would. Plenty of times he’s propped me up to bed when I was as soused to the gills. And if he was in trouble too: though Zeke’s Crossing’s a peaceable town, it ain’t likely they were in a fight. There’s drinking at the end of the day, but most of ‘em are farmers or hands, too tired from a day’s work to do more than-‘ He snaps his fingers. ‘Day’s work.’ 

‘What?’ asks Billy. 

‘Day’s work don’t always end at sundown,’ explains Goodnight patiently, ‘not with cattle. Could be they were out on the range, so there was no one to change with.’ 

‘Then that means all we have to do is try again…’ Billy trails off as the realisation hits home: the sun’s low in the west, too late to set off back to town now – they’ll be spending the night out here. ‘But if we’re not there…’ 

Goodnight looks older than Billy’s seen. ‘Won’t be changing back tonight either.’ 

Wave after wave of realisation breaks on him, each colder than the last. ‘If – if they’re were out last night and it didn’t work, and they’ve figured it out, like us, they’ll have gone back to the boarding house today and –‘ 

‘It still won’t work. What if they think it’s over?’ asks Goodnight, ashen. ‘Give up, or get made to go?’ Billy can’t answer him, words sticking in his throat.

‘We have to go.’ Goodnight jumps to his feet. ‘Get there before it’s too late.’ 

‘Almost dark,’ warns Red, ‘and you won’t find it on your own.’ 

‘You can show us,’ insists Goodnight, already striding away towards the river. ‘This could be my last chance.’ 

‘Wait,’ says Billy, struggling to his feet, but Goodnight’s already vanished. 

‘Stay here,’ orders Red, ‘I’ll stop him,’ and he dashes away on Goodnight’s heels leaving Billy alone in the fading light.

 

 _No_. The enormity of what he’s facing, the thoughts he’s tried so hard to suppress come crashing in on him. Goody, alone in the past? What if he’s gone, slipped away through time, and this Goodnight here to stay? It’s terrifying. He can’t set him adrift in a future he doesn’t understand: he’ll have to take him home, teach him about it. Humans adapt to anything – a man from the 1800s will find things strange, be astounded by a first sight of planes and cars and medicine and smartphones: but he’s not a savage or an alien: he’s an educated man, from a time when steamships and trains could already cross the globe. He’s seen the beginnings of photography and telegraph messages, he’s read his Jules Verne. He’ll adapt, no doubt of that. 

But – his Goody. Out of reach. Or…and he feels so cold at the thought that his skin crawls. He’s been envisaging Goody in a time running parallel to their own, the two Goodnights sleeping in the same bed, sitting the same horse, superimposed on each other as they walk the streets of the shifting town: he’s pictured Goody working, drinking, studying the world he’s found himself in as though he’s invisible at Billy’s side. 

But now he finally allows himself to think it: if Goody really has gone to the past, if he never comes back – then he’s already dead. He’s lived out the whole of his life, long or short, good or ill, with a different version of Billy, died and been buried. His grave is out there, somewhere. Perhaps if he looks Billy can find a reference to him in a newspaper, a letter in an archive in his flowing hand. The images bring him to his knees, tears prickling at the corner of his vision. _I hope Billy loved him as much as I do_. 

It’s like being in an earthquake: everything you think is fixed and solid, suddenly turned to liquid under your feet, nothing to hold onto because it’s all shaking apart. Then suddenly there’s a voice at his ear saying, ‘Sweetheart’, the loving arms he knows so well holding him and a familiar tickle on his cheek; and what can Billy do but fall into his embrace and let Goody kiss his brow, stroke his shoulders to ground him as Billy’s done for him so many times. 

When he’s calm enough Billy raises his head to meet Goodnight’s eyes. ‘We’ll go back to town and we’ll stay,’ he promises, ‘stay as long as we need to. I’ll get them to give us the room.’ It sounds so easy, but the objections come piling up: another week, maybe, but a month? Two? Can he take that much time off from his job, his patients, without saying why? What possible reason can he give that will persuade Jack to let them stay on in Ezekiel’s Crossing? Who’d believe him if he says, _Goody’s gone_ , when he’s still right there beside him? ‘You’ll get back.’ _And Goody will wake up beside me_.

‘Back to what? What if Billy can’t stay?’ Of course Goodnight’s thoughts echo his own. ‘Lord knows he’d be better off without me – I trail round after him like a calf after its mother, and maybe it’ll do him good to take off alone.’ He blinks rapidly and clears his throat. 

‘But he’s not alone, is he?’ says Billy urgently. ‘Goody’s with him. He wouldn’t abandon him.’ 

It’s falling to dusk around them, only the rush of the river in the background; he can feel Goodnight shivering under his hands. ‘What if they’ve already gone? What if they never come back and I’m here, now, for good?’ 

There’s such desperation on his face: before he thinks, Billy hugs him close. ‘You’ve got me.’ 

Goodnight bows his head. ‘I don’t belong here, you said it, and Sam and Red too.’ 

Billy takes him by the shoulders, suddenly fierce. ‘You belong with me. I won’t let you go.’ The words tell him what to do, and he reaches into his pocket, closing his fingers over the ring. ‘Give me your hand.’ 

Goodnight looks at him, confused, but Billy takes his hand, lifts it up and slips it onto Goodnight’s finger. ‘I’ll take care of you, I promise,’ he says, and they press closer into each other’s warmth, two drowning men, exhausted and terrified, clinging to the only safety they can find.

\---

‘The town, that’s got to be it.’ 

There’s nothing like hard work to drive even the most serious concerns to the back of the mind: once the rest of the hands joined them in the chilly dawn Goodnight and Billy had had no choice but to choke down their shock and confusion and set to once more. Instead of droving they’ve spent the day combing the countryside for strays and bringing them in two or three at a time, work that’s needed all of Goodnight’s concentration to control horse and cows and rope together; it’s kept them apart, ranging the hills and canyons and trailing back to the pens, and they’ve had few chances to exchange words, let alone discuss their situation. But as he’s ridden and roped and shouted, Goodnight’s carried a knot of worry tight in his chest: _why am I still here?_

When he and Curly herd the last two reluctant steers into the pen it’s almost sunset, and Curly trots briskly away to join the other hands already heading back to town: Billy’s waiting a little distance away, head bowed, letting his horse crop tiredly at the grass. 

As Goodnight approaches the dislocation threatens to unbalance his self-control once more: it could be him. I could ride up and find that it’s the right Billy, I could be back where I should be – and when Billy raises his head Goodnight suspects he sees in the hunch of his shoulders that he too can’t douse the spark of hope that the familiar figure in the distance might just be the right Goodnight. When Goodnight joins him Billy’s face is hard and his jaw tight, but though Goodnight’s tired he’s optimistic again, and as soon as he’s in earshot, the words come tumbling out.

‘We just need to be back in town: Red Harvest told me, I just didn’t pick it up at the time.’ 

‘Who told you? When?’ Billy’s still grim-faced as they fall in together on the trail. 

‘Day before yesterday,’ begins Goodnight eagerly. ‘Red Harvest, he’s a native, a Comanche, he grew up with the town when it was still abandoned, and he was trying to tell me…’ He dries up at the confusion on Billy’s face. 

‘You spoke to a native?’ 

Goodnight feels the yawning gulf in their experience more acutely than ever. ‘It’s – it’s not like now.’ How to explain it in a way that Billy’s going to understand? ‘Zeke’s Crossing, these days, is on Comanche land.’ Billy nods shortly. ‘And Red Harvest, he’s Jack’s partner in the business, he had the idea of bringing to town back to life.’ He can read Billy’s scepticism but ploughs on. ‘He told me, when he found me in the schoolhouse.’ It seems impossibly long ago, Red’s dark gaze, the button he picked up… 

‘The schoolhouse?’ Billy’s temper is beginning to fray and Goodnight can’t blame him; he cuts to the chase. 

‘I think we did the wrong thing, sleeping out here. If I’m going to change over with your Goodnight, we need to be in the town, in the boarding-house. We wake up in bed each time, don’t we?’ 

Billy still looks unconvinced. ‘You think that’s all it’ll take? Sleep in the bed tonight and Goody will come back?’ 

‘Yes,’ insists Goodnight, ‘I’m sure. All I have to do is lie down in that room again, and tomorrow morning we’ll both be back where we belong.’ He’s so relieved to have found an explanation that makes sense. ‘And better than that, we can stop it happening again. Billy and I, we’ll – swap rooms, no, we can take off altogether, go back to the ranch, and everything will be back to normal, here and there.’ 

Billy looks like he wants to believe it. ‘If Goody does come back, then we’ll leave too, go and camp out. We’ll be done with the job at week’s end, and we can leave for good.’ 

‘Us too,’ says Goodnight, though it brings a pang; if he’s right, it’ll be the last time he sees this Billy, lined and hard and determined to protect his partner. He pushes the thought away: this Billy doesn’t want him here, and he needs to be with his own husband. 

He grins at Billy encouragingly as the storefronts creep over the horizon in front of them. ‘It’ll be OK. Trust me.’ 

‘Now where have I heard that before?’ But in spite of himself, Billy breaks into an answering smile. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

‘You said it would work.’ Before he opens his eyes Goodnight knows what he’s going to see – the grey sheets, the faded curtains, the water-jug on the chest and the film of dust from the street. Billy is shaking his shoulder, rough; in the flat dawn light his face is sharp and hostile. ‘You said it was the room, the bed. Why are you still here?’ 

Goodnight sits up, gut churning, yesterday’s tide of optimism ebbed to leave him on a barren shore. ‘I don’t know.’ He’d been so confident this was the key, the way to put things right. 

Billy rolls out of bed in shirt and drawers, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘Why hasn’t Goody come back?’ 

‘Maybe he wasn’t in the right place.’ As soon as he’s said it Goodnight wishes he hadn’t, possibilities crowding into his mind. Does the other Goodnight still think it’s all a dream? Did Billy think he was delusional and take him back to the ranch, or to the hospital? He can’t allow himself to think it. ‘We just have to stay here, wait it out…’ He tails off, hearing the words fall dead and hollow.

‘For how long?’ Billy grasps the brass rail at the foot of the bed, facing him. ‘Job’s nearly done. We’re supposed to be leaving tomorrow.’ 

_Stay calm, be rational_ , Goodnight tells himself, as though there’s anything rational about this. ‘We can’t go. It happens here, that’s the only thing we know.’ 

The frame rattles in Billy’s grip. ‘When? In a week? A month? You don’t know, do you? You’re just saying it because you want it to be true.’ And he’s right: Goodnight’s lost and confused and still can’t believe it’s real, and now Billy is watching him with an emptiness, a lack of sympathy that’s terrible to see.

Suddenly the room feels claustrophobic, a stage-setting to mock his hopes. What if Billy’s right and he’s fooling himself, like a child – _I’ll just wake up and everything will be all right_. 

‘What if it’s stopped?’ Billy’s got his back to him, voice strained, but it’s as though their thoughts are one and the same. _What if it’s over, whatever it is?_

‘What can we do?’ Goodnight hunches in the blankets as though that’ll protect him. 

‘That’s the question.’ Billy straightens up, agitation clamping down into an icy calm. ‘Goody’s my manager: can you set up fights for me? Face down the assholes who won’t pay? Bluff a hand of poker?’ Goodnight didn’t think he could feel colder. ‘I-‘ he starts, but it’s as though Billy hasn’t heard. ‘Can you fix a saddle? Keep my back in a shootout?’ 

‘You know I can’t,’ he says quietly. 

Billy looks at him, unsparing. ‘I partner with Goody because it makes a difference for me. Makes life easier.’ 

Goodnight swallows hard against a rising nausea. There’s no reason Billy should stay with him: he’s not the man he knows. ‘I understand you’ve no obligation to me,’ he says, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘I’m not him.’ 

‘If he doesn’t come back…’ Billy’s face creases in pain and Goodnight reaches a hand towards him without thinking, but suddenly Billy’s throwing on his pants and vest. ‘Got to get to work,’ he says tightly, back turned. 

Goodnight’s as free-falling as he was on that first day. ‘What will you do, after?’ It comes out hoarse but he has to ask. 

‘What I did before.’ Billy’s buckling on his belt of knives; he won’t look at Goodnight. ‘Earn a living my own way.’ 

_You can’t_ , he wants to protest, _you’re all I have, don’t leave me_ , but he chokes it back, trembling, as Billy gathers hat and coat and shoulders out the door. 

 

As the sound of his boots on the stairs fades to silence Goodnight’s perceptions lurch, everything around him simultaneously appallingly solid and completely unreal. He wants to bang his head against the wall, smash through the glass of the window; he lashes out, crashing his fist against the chest. 

The flare of pain that follows is enough to ground him and the rational part of him resurfaces. He can’t blame Billy for being terrified and disoriented: this was an adventure, an experience, it can’t turn into something else. The exchange must work – it’s happened before, and to the gambler too; it must be a question of finding the right circumstances, getting the two of them, himself and his counterpart, into position. He just needs to be patient, stick to what he knows: his Billy won’t give up, he’s sure of it, he’ll wait as long as it takes. _Stay focused_ , he tells himself. He should go after Billy, catch him up and do the day’s work that’s waiting for him. 

He stands up and fills the basin to wash as best he can, but he’s done no more than rinse his face when the sound of a rider outside freezes him mid-motion. He pushes aside the curtain and there in the street below is Billy, poised and straight in the saddle, face hidden under the brim of his hat. He doesn’t look up, just rides past and away along the street until he’s no more than a black dot on the road out of town. 

It’s the sight that finally undoes Goodnight, sets him rattling apart: Billy done with him, taking his grief away to nurse alone. It never occurred to him that he might have to do without him. But Billy doesn’t owe him anything: he’s right, he’d be a dead weight, and it’s a difficult enough life. The vista that opens out before him is so vast and fearful that bile rises in his throat. If Billy takes off, turns his horse and rides away, what will he do? Wait here alone, praying for a miracle? Weeks going by and then months, until he turns into a fixture of the town, that crazy Robicheaux? 

Still leaning on the window he takes a shuddering breath. He desperately wants a pill, the soothing deadening embrace that will tell him everything is OK even when it isn’t; he wants one of the cigarettes Billy gave him. He reaches blindly for his clothes, the ridiculous outfit that’s somehow his reality, fingers cold and clumsy. If there’s nothing else he can at least sink into a bottle of rotgut until he passes out. 

He hurries through the boarding-house lobby and out onto the sidewalk where the town is already going about its regular business, children scuffling about outside the schoolhouse. Someone shouts, but he ignores it, desperate to fill the hollowness inside him. 

The doors of the saloon are propped open, a maid sweeping out the sawdust while the barman stacks crates, but it’s not the kind of place that ever closes: inside a man in his undershirt is hunched morosely over a bottle and another is asleep at a table while two of the girls comb out their hair, talking low in a corner. 

The barman comes back to pour Goodnight a glass without comment: he downs it in one go. The shock of the raw spirits is at least distracting and he motions for another. The barman squints at him as he refills the glass. ‘You Robicheaux?’ 

The name is mangled but Goodnight says, ‘I am.’ 

‘Saw you in here with him.’ The man ducks to root around under the bar and comes up with a letter. ‘He left this for you. Lawman, all in black.’ 

Sam. It seems longer than two days since they sat in here; Goodnight remembers his concern and how abruptly he’d left. He takes the proffered letter and nods his thanks, then picks up his glass and retreats to a table. The sheet’s addressed to him in neat square writing, not sealed; he opens it and reads:

 _Goody, if you change your mind and you and Billy want to lend your assistance to an old comrade there’s work enough for three – I don’t expect that wrongdoing will be going out of fashion anytime soon – and I’d appreciate some tall tales around the fire at night. I’m thinking to be a week in Laredo: I’ll leave word with the Sheriff’s Office where to find me._

It’s like a friendly squeeze to his shoulder, a steadying hand on his back when he was about to lose his footing. Sam offering a tactful solution to Goodnight and Billy’s problems is no surprise, but … could this be an answer for him too? Sam’s his friend, as genuine in this time as in the present, and if he put up with the other Goodnight’s PTSD, maybe he’ll give him time to adapt. Bounty-hunting doesn’t sound too great as a career, but at least it’s legitimate work; what are his other options, alone? There’ll be no cattle work here once the herd moves on. Could he hire himself out as a clerk or a storehand? It seems unlikely, and if he did, could he afford to go on living in the boarding-house, waiting and hoping? He scans the letter again and determination takes root: this must be a sign, to save him from himself. 

If he’s going to catch up with Sam there’s no time to waste: he should pack up his gear and head out. It’s a relief to have a purpose, to leave the second glass untouched and go back to the boarding-house to gather the other Goodnight’s few belongings. Easy enough to tell which saddlebag is his: inside there’s a clean blue shirt and underwear, a bundle wrapped in a bandanna that proves to contain scissors and shaving kit, a box of bullets and three small books, one poetry, one prose, and one which seems to be a journal – he thumbs through it, but it doesn’t seem right to read it, even though the writing is his own. The cooking gear he leaves – no point weighing himself down, and no doubt Sam will have some – but he takes the canteen. He feels a pang of guilt at the thought of Billy, out in the day’s heat without it, but he can’t leave it behind if he’s heading off alone. Surely Billy can buy another when he collects both their wages? 

Bag on his shoulder, he hesitates at the door, indecision rising again. Rationally he knows he should stay, this room, the town itself, his only anchor to the future, but when he contemplates what it might mean, watching Billy ride out for good, waking up here alone, day after day, his nerve fails him. _If this is to be my future, better to shape it for myself_.

Downstairs he asks one of the tired-looking women clearing away the breakfast dishes where he can fill his canteen and she waves him through to the bucket by the back door. She must see something in his face, because when he’s filled and stoppered it she asks, ‘Heading out?’ and when he nods she silently offers him a heel of bread and bacon and a withered apple which he stows in his bag.

‘Kind of you,’ he says, then, as she turns back to her dishes, ‘How long to Laredo, from here, do you know?’ 

She considers. ‘Two weeks, maybe, for you. Stage takes longer.’ Goodnight nods. Billy won’t ask, but still…

At the livery the owner, intent on the horse he’s shoeing, grunts and jerks his head; Goodnight goes along the row of stalls to find Adelaide on her own. She rumbles and nuzzles at him, obviously convinced he’s the man she knows, and he strokes her neck. ‘Just me and you’, he tells her softly. He saddles up and adds bedroll, bag and rifle; it seems absurdly little. Does this Goodnight really own nothing else? 

As he leads Adelaide out he pauses to ask, ‘You see a friend of mine head out yesterday? Man all in black.’ 

The liveryman nods grudgingly. ‘Went off noontime. Didn’t look like he was waiting around.’ 

‘Thanks,’ says Goodnight again. There’s no need to ask, _Which way?_ : the single road runs through the town, north and south. 

He can’t bring himself to nudge Adelaide above a walk along the main street, past all the townspeople going about their lives; faces turn as he passes and he wants to stop and seize each one of them, to ask, _Do you really belong here? Did you wake up in the wrong time and never get back?_

At the edge of town he draws to a halt: the trail snakes away ahead of him, but over to the east a smudge of dust hangs on the horizon where the cattlemen are working. He pictures Billy riding through it, face set, doing his job: he could still go to join him, but it can’t be fair to try to cling to him when he’s made clear he wants no part of it. And at the end of the day? The thought of facing Billy’s rejection gets him moving again, though the loss echoes in him redoubled: his own beloved, out of reach, and now this tough wild Billy too. 

The road is flat, barely more than a dusty trail, but it’s not hard to follow: the urge to turn around claws at his gut, but Goodnight sets his face determinedly forward. One step at a time. Day’s ride, camp out at night, see if he can find anything to eat along the way. He can’t see himself snaring or shooting anything, but if he hits a creek he could fish, maybe… And Sam will be looking out for him: all he has to do is stick to the road, a few nights’ camp, and he’ll be with the only other person in this world he knows. 

Out here there’s less to tell him he’s in the past, the open expanse of country the same as when they rode out with Red, the air dusty and rich with the scents of grass and herbs as Adelaide brushes through the scrub. The idea begins to nag at him that he could just ride back into his own reality after all, let Ezekiel’s Crossing dwindle behind him and see Jack’s ranch appearing small in the distance, come shimmering out of the heat haze like a cowboy in a movie and find Billy waiting there, leaning on the rail… Real cowboys don’t cry, he tells himself, and that’s what he is now, a real cowboy, and the absurdity of it, the _this-must-be-a-dream_ , engulfs him in another wash of despair. 

 

After a while the track dips down to meet a shallow river and match its lazy bends, and canyon bluffs begin to rise to either side; soon he’s riding past weatherworn rocks and gullies, the only sound the thud of Adelaide’s hooves and the purl of the river over the stones. He itches under his coat – he didn’t wash before he left – and his stomach gripes. Well, that at least he can remedy: he fishes the apple out of his bag and bites into its woolly flesh. Is this what life is going to be like from now on? No one he’s met here seemed to expect anything different. But there must have been other kinds of work, jobs for bank clerks and company men. Could he go back to what he knows, make a living by writing? Maybe he could, at that – hell, if he became an editor he’d know who to look for, wouldn’t he, _Hello, Miss Dickinson, you don’t know me, but…_

He’s close to hysteria, he knows, mind scrabbling to push down the single thought that weighs in his chest: what if he never sees Billy again? Not the hard-eyed Billy who left this morning – he’s right, he’s best off without him. But his own Billy, clever, patient Billy, frowning in concentration over a book or a journal, laughing with that broad private smile, watching him with that gentle loving look Goodnight’s never felt he’s deserved. Every time he thinks it is a punch to the gut that leaves him gulping for breath. He twists his hand to see the tan line on his finger: when it fades he’ll have nothing left of him, no sign that they ever were. But he could write down their story, couldn’t he, about two men called Goodnight Robicheaux and Billy Rocks, how they met and loved each other and how they lost themselves, and if he puts it in a box in a lawyer’s office maybe one day a Billy who hasn’t been born yet could read it- 

The pain of it finally has his vision blurring, the trail and the scrubby landscape wavering in front of him – but out of nowhere comes the crack of a shot to his left, startlingly loud: Adelaide shies, whinnying in alarm. 

A shout, close by; Goodnight slithers clumsily from the saddle, scalp prickling. Are they shooting at him? Another shout, closer, and a figure appears among the bushes, a small man in a patched jacket and low-crowned hat – ‘Mose!’ 

Mose is as surprised as he is to see someone he recognises. ‘Goodnight! Ain’t you back on line work?’ 

‘Why are you out this way?’ asks Goodnight, dizzy with relief. He’d assumed Billy, Mose and everyone else were in the telltale smudge of dust around the herd. ‘Who else is here?’ 

Mose seems uncomfortable at the question. ‘Just me and the boss. Said he’d heard more about savages setting to raid up here and we should come see. Found one, too.’ 

Goodnight’s skin turns to gooseflesh and he scans the canyon walls above them. Has he been riding along wrapped up in his own thoughts, straight into an ambush? Are they being watched now? 

Mose beckons. ‘Wetherall’s got him this way.’ He eyes Goodnight’s rifle. ‘Extra hand with a gun won’t go amiss,’ and Goodnight hurries to join him, grasping Adelaide’s reins: safety in numbers, that’s got to be true. 

He follows Mose up a gap in the rocks; on the other side of the bluff two horses are standing, reins trailing, among the low-spreading trees. At their approach Wetherall, dusty from a struggle and with a broad-bladed knife in his hand, looks up from the figure hunched at his feet, ‘See any—‘ he starts, then snorts in recognition. ‘Well, look who it is. Told you there was Indians about – believe me now?’ 

Goodnight gulps: the man collapsed in the dirt, hands roped behind his back, is half-naked in buckskin trousers with tangled black hair hanging over his face. Wetherall straightens up. ‘Where there’s one there’ll be more, scouts for the raiding party.’ 

‘But the herd’s miles away…’ Goodnight’s bemused. 

Wetherall gives him a withering glance. ‘They’ll be waiting up along the trail. We bring the herd right through here, and they’re just out for their chance to tomahawk us and make off with the stock. Ain’t you?’ he asks the man directly, grabbing his hair to haul his head up. 

Black eyes dart from one to another of them, but when the man looks full into Goodnight’s face his heart stops. The Red Harvest he knows wears his hair in braids, is broad and muscular in jeans and a flannel shirt; this Red Harvest is thinner, a necklace of animal claws around his neck and bleeding from a wound to his shoulder, but it’s him. ‘Red Harvest,’ he says, before he thinks, and the man’s gaze flicks to him in shock. 

‘Get the other rope,’ Wetherall orders Mose, ‘I reckon that old tree will do for it.’ 

Mose goes over and begins to unwind a rope from the saddle. It takes Goodnight a moment to process what’s happening. ‘You can’t just hang him.’ 

Wetherall shoves Red down again. ‘Ain’t going to waste lead on him. String him up as a warning for the others.’ 

‘How do you know he was here to spy?’ protests Goodnight. _Can this really happen?_ ‘His people live here – we’re the ones trespassing on their land.’ 

‘What kind of bullshit is that?’ Wetherall takes the rope from Mose and starts knotting it. ‘Indians don’t own this land, it’s ours. He’s got no business hanging round here, and I ain’t letting him go to bring his friends back with him.’ 

‘No,’ protests Goodnight, horrified in the face of Wetherall’s cold-blooded determination. 

Red’s been watching their conversation, squinting up at them; suddenly he says clearly, ‘White men are hunting your cows, not Comanche.’ 

‘See?’ says Goodnight in relief. If this Red can speak English, walk two worlds like his counterpart, that must make a difference, surely. 

Wetherall spits. ‘Think because he can parrot our lingo he’s telling the truth?’ 

‘White men, in camp,’ says Red again. He gestures. ‘At _Okweeti_. We see fire sign from them, at night.’ 

‘What d’you mean?’ begins Mose, bending closer, but Wetherall shoves him out of the way. 

‘’s just gabble - can’t expect an Indian to talk sense. C’mon, get that rope up over the branch ‘fore the rest of his crew jump us.’ He hauls Red to his feet, the knife under his chin, and Red’s eyes flicker back to Goodnight. 

He can’t be a part of this, can’t see Red lynched. He tightens his grasp on the rifle in his hands and says with more certainty, ‘No.’ 

Wetherall turns around and laughs out loud. ‘Should have guessed you’d be an Indian-lover too. D’you even know one end of that piece from the other?’ He lets go of Red to swagger closer, knife still in hand, and Goodnight has to fight the urge to step back. ‘Now I know you ain’t got the stones to shoot me, so why don’t you just-‘ 

‘You smug son-of-a-bitch,’ says Goodnight, and swings the butt of his rifle round to catch him in the head. Wetherall staggers and sits down hard, the knife spinning from his grasp; behind him Red is struggling to his feet. 

Goodnight turns to Mose, who takes a step back, hands outstretched. ‘I ain’t getting involved.’ 

Taking his eye off Wetherall proves a costly mistake: he lunges upward with a roar, hand dipping to his gun. Goodnight levels the rifle, finger fumbling for the trigger, slow, too slow: Wetherall’s aiming his pistol. 

Everything goes treacly and slow, a cold nausea gripping him: this isn’t a pretend fight, a movie shoot-out with blanks and puffs of smoke, this is real, death just a shot away. Men can be hanged and their killers ride off; Wetherall could shoot him and leave him here in the desert. No one would ever know. 

All Goodnight can see is Wetherall’s gun aimed square at his chest, his finger tightening on the trigger; he’s paralysed, chest constricting – then a shove from behind sends him tumbling as a shot rings out. Something bright flashes in a confusion of yelling, then he comes right-side-up to see Billy, head bare, poised in a fighter’s stance. 

He doesn’t spare Goodnight a glance, standing coiled and watchful in front of a panting Wetherall who clutches his arm where blood wells through his sleeve. ‘Should have known you’d have your own savage to do your fighting for you,’ he sneers; there’s no movement on Billy’s face, but, ‘Next one’s in your throat,’ he promises, calm as if he’s commenting on the scenery. 

Wetherall’s eyes slide sideways to Mose and Goodnight hefts the rifle that’s astonishingly still in his hands – he’s not going to make the same mistake twice. But Mose’s uncertainty is easy to read: he doesn’t want to have to choose a side, doesn’t see why an Indian should be the cause of all this. 

Wetherall turns his attention back to Billy. ‘You cut me. You’ll answer to that.’ 

‘Count yourself lucky,’ grits Billy, ‘You drew on him.’ 

Goodnight gets to his feet with as much dignity as he can muster as Wetherall growls, ‘Trying to stop us giving a savage what he deserved...’ He tails off, realising what’s happened and Mose chips in helpfully, ‘He ran off.’ 

Wetherall spits, ostentatiously holstering his gun. ‘Well, you saved him.’ He turns his contempt back to Goodnight again. ‘Shoulda known a white man don’t partner with a Chinaman unless he’s wrong in the head.’ 

‘I heard enough to make sense of.’ Goodnight’s mind is working furiously to piece it all together. ‘I know a lawman was tracking a gang of cattle rustlers through here.’ He holds Wetherall’s gaze. White men.’ 

Mose looks confused. ‘Didn’t the Indian say something ‘bout fire s-‘ 

Wetherall turns away hastily, cutting him off. ‘Ain’t going to stand here jawing about what a savage said. C’mon,’ he orders Mose, ‘and bring that rope.’ He mounts up, wincing, while Mose coils the rope again, then wrenches his horse’s head around. ‘Don’t bother coming back, and don’t think you’ll either of you be getting paid.’ 

 

Billy waits, listening, until their hoofbeats fade, then rounds on Goodnight, grabbing his arm roughly. ‘What were you _doing_?’ His eyes dart over him, checking for injury. 

‘Why are you here?’ asks Goodnight just as brusquely. They probably sent him, like Mose… 

Billy lets him go and steps away to pick up his knife. ‘Looking for you.’ His voice is muffled as he gathers it and wipes the blade on his pants. ‘I thought … I went back to the boarding-house and you’d taken your gear; they said you’d headed out.’ His face is expressionless: they stand looking at each other awkwardly. 

‘Picked up a letter from Sam,’ says Goodnight hoarsely. ‘Thought it was for the best.’ He can’t bear to do this again, Billy in front of him, loved and familiar, turning into a stranger walking away. 

But suddenly Billy’s up close, hands on his arms and his face open and vulnerable in a way Goodnight’s not seen. ‘Don’t go. What I said - we can work things out. It doesn’t have to be – I can do the fighting for us, I’ll take care of things. Just – don’t go.’ 

‘Sweetheart,’ says Goodnight, too dizzy with relief to remember who he’s talking to; he finally dares to reach out and touch Billy’s cheek, then two arms come round him and he could break from the comfort of it. 

‘I know I’m not him,’ says Billy urgently in his ear, ‘and you’re not Goody, but…’ 

‘It’s OK.’ Goodnight hugs him close, breathing him deep: he smells of cattle and sweat and unwashed sheets and stale tobacco, but underneath it all, of home. ‘It’s OK. We’ll work this out.’ He rests his head on Billy’s shoulder and hopes with all his heart that somewhere in the future Billy’s Goody and his Billy are doing the same. 

He tightens his arms and Billy hisses, just a tiny intake of breath, but Goodnight steps back in alarm. ‘You’re hurt.’ 

‘Just a graze.’ Billy tries to pull away, but Goodnight runs a hand down his side and brings it away tacky with blood. He sees it as though from outside, Billy pushing him away, striding into the path of a gun for him. ‘You took a bullet for me,’ he says, overcome. 

‘Wetherall’s no great shakes,’ says Billy dismissively. ‘Not serious.’ 

‘It is serious,’ contradicts Goodnight, ‘we need to get it seen to, cleaned and –' _and whatever passes for medical care out here_.

‘Horse is back that way.’ Billy gestures through the trees; as they set off he asks, ‘Why were you fighting over an Indian?’ 

Goodnight looks around and down to the canyon below, but there’s no sign of Red except for the scuff marks in the dust. ‘They were going to kill him.’ The brute reality of it still turns him cold. 

Billy shrugs. ‘Wouldn’t be the first.’ 

Goodnight stops. ‘You don’t understand – he was Red Harvest. He’s there in the future, like Sam.’ 

Billy narrows his eyes. ‘You sure?’ 

‘Yes. He didn’t know me, but he heard when I said his name. And he spoke English – he understood what Wetherall was saying about the cattle.’ 

‘What about it?’ Billy looks confused and Goodnight can’t blame him; he’s only just put it together himself. 

‘Wetherall’s been warning about Indian raids, trying to set us all on edge, yes? But Red said there’s a group of white men up ahead, and they’re sending up fire signal at night. Sam said he’d come here following a bunch of rustlers: it must be them.’ 

Billy’s face lightens in understanding. ‘You reckon Wetherall’s in some kind of deal with them? Taking the cattle through and blaming the losses on the Comanche?’ 

Goodnight nods. ‘No wonder he was out to shut Red up.’ They’ve come up to where Billy tied up his horse: he picks his hat from the horn of the saddle. Goodnight’s still calculating. ‘If we could get word to Sam…’ But no, they need to go back to town, get Billy’s injury cleaned up…

They both jump at a crackling among the trees: a grey horse appears like a ghost, painted in red and white, Red on its back. Now he’s free again he makes an impressive figure, a great bow across his back: Goodnight remembers Red’s dry comment on the drive from the airport, _All my people ever did on screen was hail down arrows and scalp settlers_. 

He draws the horse to a halt, gaze flicking between them. ‘Why did you help me?’ he demands, loud in the hot dry air. 

Goodnight moves closer, looking up at him. ‘I know you. Not here, but – somewhere else.’ 

‘Goody,’ cautions Billy from behind him, but Goodnight holds Red’s gaze as he frowns down at him. ‘How do you know my name?’ 

Does he have anything to lose here? ‘This place – this town – it’s strange. People disappear, and other people come who don’t belong. Like me.’ He thinks a spark of acknowledgement flashes behind those dark eyes. ‘A man who is you, Red Harvest, he brought me here. A hundred years from now.’ 

Red cocks his head to one side. ‘ _Numu_ people are still here?’ 

‘Yes,’ says Goodnight. ‘Ain’t much, but it’s something.’ Red nods once. 

Before Goodnight can say more Billy breaks in. ‘Those men up ahead…’ 

Red’s face darkens. ‘Trouble for us. They all say, Comanche, taking cows.’ His mouth curls in disgust. ‘We do not want cows. But they will come, with soldiers…’

‘Not if we could get word to Sam.’ And there is a way to fix this, bring in the law. Goodnight looks up at Red again. ‘A man came this way two days ago. Black clothes, black horse, black skin.’ Red nods in recognition. ‘Sam Chisolm, his name is. He’s looking for these men: if you show him where to find this camp, he can clean them out.’ 

Red scowls. ‘White man or black, he will not listen to me.’ 

‘He speaks your language,’ says Goodnight eagerly. ‘And here.’ He takes out the letter. ‘Show him this. Tell him what happened.’ 

Red looks from him to Billy and back, considering, then bends down to take the letter. ‘I will pay my debt. You should stay.’ 

‘Should I?’ asks Goodnight. He and Red share a long wordless look; then Red kicks his horse and all at once he’s galloping away, kicking up a cloud of dust. 

 

Down in the canyon they pause at the river to let their horses drink before they start back to town; Goodnight offers the canteen silently and Billy takes it with a twitch of his lips. The sun is high and shade sparse: Goodnight shucks his coat and vest, stowing them behind his saddle, and hears a stifled laugh. 

‘Goody would never do that, ride around in his shirtsleeves.’ 

‘I’ll cook,’ says Goodnight defensively, rolling up his cuffs. 

‘Soft,’ scoffs Billy again, but this time his tone is affectionate. 

As they head back the way he came Goodnight has to ask, ‘I know we should, but – you think going back is safe?’ 

Billy looks grimly amused. ‘Drawing a knife on the boss wasn’t the best move, but he’ll be out with the herd till sundown – reckon we’ve got time.’ 

The riding’s not hard but now Goodnight’s adrenaline has drained his hip sets up a regular nagging ache: he must have bruised it in the fall. It’s tempting to stop and try to ease it, but Billy’s jaw is pulling tight, his injury clearly hurting and his conversation dried to silence. By the time the storefronts of Ezekiel’s Crossing appear on the horizon Goodnight’s concerned enough that he doesn’t spare the street around him a second glance, this abnormal existence of stables, stores and saloon become unremarkable. 

‘We should find a doctor,’ he suggests, but Billy rolls his eyes, impatient. ‘No need for that, just need to wash it and fix it up.’ 

Goodnight wants to insist – how can he take a gunshot wound so lightly? – but he’s not even certain there is a doctor in the town, or that professional medicine will have a great deal to offer; Billy simply heads for the boarding-house and Goodnight guesses he must know what he’s doing. 

He sits on the bed watching as Billy unbuttons his vest to reveal a patch of drying blood across his side: he gingerly pulls his shirt free and tugs it over his head. Catching Goodnight’s expression he pulls a face. ‘Only a graze,’ and it’s true, it’s no more than a scrape along his ribs, shallow but bloody. 

‘We need to get—‘ Goodnight cuts off as Billy pours out the dregs of last night’s water from the jug into the basin. ‘What are you doing?’ 

Billy turns a puzzled frown towards him. ‘Washing it out.’ 

‘With soap and dirty water?’ 

Billy sighs. ‘Even Goody doesn’t fuss this much. It’s not serious.’ 

Goodnight grits his teeth. ‘It could get infected.’ Did they even have anything to disinfect a wound in this time? He curses inwardly at the thought of their bathroom cabinet at home, stuffed with over-the-counter antiseptic and sterile dressings. ‘At least let me get some water boiled.’ Billy looks as though he’s about to object, but Goodnight takes his arm as gently as he can. ‘Please. Trust me.’ He can’t help but smile wryly. ‘May not be much use to you any other way, but I can be sure about this.’

He takes the basin to empty out, just to be sure, and hurries down to the kitchen, racking his brains. Water they can boil, he can get a kettle put on the stove, but what else is there to use? They must have herbs, he supposes, but how much good would that do? Or salt? That’s what dentists tell you for extracted teeth, isn’t it, and salt at least they’ll have. 

Billy’s sitting patiently on the bed when Goodnight returns with a basin of hot salt water and a cloth filched from a pile of clean laundry. ‘Here.’ He sits down beside him on the bed, self-consciousness forgotten in his concern, wrings out the cloth and cleans the wound as thoroughly as he can. ‘Water that’s been boiled, properly boiled, bubbling for five minutes,’ he tells him. ‘And salt.’ 

Billy says nothing, though despite Goodnight’s care he hisses through his teeth once or twice. It brings home to Goodnight once again the gulf between then and now, life so precarious here: it’s not just shootouts that bring death close. People must die of ruptured appendices, of measles, of treading on a nail. 

Billy waits until he’s laid down the cloth. ‘Goody always says that in the war more men died in the hospitals than on the battlefield.’ He nods towards his bag. ‘Bandage.’ Goodnight’s less adept at this, but Billy shows him how to wrap and tie it. 

Once it’s done Goodnight expects him to get up, but he stays, looking sideways with a measuring gaze. ‘Guess that’s how you came through…?’ He gestures towards Goodnight’s hip. 

It hadn’t occurred to him how odd the sight of such healing might be; if the other Goodnight had survived an accident like his he wouldn’t have walked again. ‘Had the bones pinned together,’ he says. ‘There’s a lot they can do.’ He rubs at it ruefully. ‘Doesn’t stop it hurting when I go ass over teakettle in the dirt.’ 

‘Show me,’ says Billy, and Goodnight tugs down the side of his pants to reveal a darkening bruise. Billy spreads a hand over it, warm and gentle. ‘Don’t have anything for that.’ 

Goodnight huffs a laugh. ‘Keeping moving’s best. Shouldn’t let it stiffen up.’ 

Billy waits for him to tuck his shirt back in, then hauls him to his feet. He looks down to Goodnight’s hip again, then back to his face. ‘I’m glad he didn’t lose you.’

While Billy puts on a clean shirt Goodnight sponges at the stain on his vest. ‘I’ve screwed all this up, haven’t I?’ he says remorsefully. ‘Made you work for both of us, then dragged you into trouble so we’re not even going to get paid.’ 

Billy shrugs. ‘We’ve had some good of it – couple of weeks regular eating, and the horses fed and tended to.’ He smiles, flashing sudden. ‘We’ll get by. Always men ready to lose their money.’ He puts on his coat. ‘Come on. Wetherall won’t be back in town yet – may as well eat and drink some more on the boss’s dime while we can.’ 

Goodnight can’t argue with that – he’s barely eaten all day, his stomach hollow with hunger. ‘Won’t hear me complain about it this time.’

 

They have time to eat and then to drink a little, but towards sundown as the other hands begin to straggle in, ‘Discretion is the better part of valour, cher,’ observes Goodnight, and they abandon the saloon rather than risk another confrontation. 

Outside the boarding-house they stop to smoke in the twilight, leaning on the rail. The sky is still red in the west, shading through violet to an inky blue above; Goodnight can feel the wood rough and splintery under his hand, the breeze cool on his face, the sensations as sharp and immediate as can be. 

‘Could do worse than head after Sam, if he’s offering to put some work our way.’ Billy passes him one of the cigarettes he’s lit and Goodnight brushes his fingers lightly in thanks. Before he can answer Billy adds, carefully neutral, ‘Think you’ll switch back again tonight?’ 

‘I don’t know,’ says Goodnight honestly. ‘Maybe they’ve worked it out, Billy and the other Goodnight. Red seemed to think it would happen.’ After a day buffeted between hope and despair he doesn’t know what to think any more, and it gives him a weird double vision: will he wake up tomorrow to an elaborate breakfast and a van to take their luggage back to the ranch, or will he be hitting the trail with a saddlebag and a bedroll? Whose future is he looking at?

Billy’s found a nail somewhere and is picking away at the railing with it. ‘You said he’s here in the future, him and his tribe?’ 

Goodnight settles himself against the rail. ‘The territory here goes back to them eventually. After the cattle trails were over – don’t know exactly when.’ If only his grasp of the history wasn’t so hazy. ‘Town was gone before that – Red was the one came up with the idea of reviving it for tourists. ’Least now the natives get some profit from it.’ He catches Billy’s expression. ‘We did some bad things to his people.’ 

‘We?’ prompts Billy suspiciously. 

‘All of us. Newcomers. Settlers.’ Billy raises an eyebrow and once again it’s so like him. ‘Fencing the land and killing the buffalo. Driving the natives into little pockets of worthless land.’ 

Billy doesn’t look up from his scratching. ‘Goody and I aren’t doing that. I’m never going to own land -- government wouldn’t let me claim it even if I had the money. Goody could, but he can’t afford it any more than I can.’ 

‘It’s just …’ Goodnight waves a hand vaguely at the landscape around them. ‘Seeing how it was. How they treated him. All of us pouring in, calling it civilisation and seeing them as the enemy.’ 

‘So what do you think we should do?’ asks Billy impatiently. ‘It’s the ranchers and railroad companies and banks that are getting rich from the land, not us.’ 

He’s right, of course: but it’s too tantalising, the idea that you could mend the ills of the past, plant the seed to build a fairer and kinder nation. ‘Maybe nothing would make a difference,’ Goodnight says slowly, ‘maybe it all just has to happen the way it does.’ He can’t begin to unravel the complexities of it. 

Billy turns to look at him. ‘It’s not all bad, from what you said. Better medicine, and less prejudice.’ He taps Goodnight’s hand with the nail, its metal point cold on his skin. ‘You said we could get married.’ 

Goodnight smiles despite himself. ‘Still find it hard to believe myself sometimes. Don’t know where I found the courage to ask him.’ 

Billy smiles, small and a little sad. ‘I’m not in the habit of saying no to you, Goody.’ 

Goodnight moves closer, shielding him from the breeze. He wants to be back where he should be, more than anything, with Billy in the life he should have – but as he watches Billy’s profile what it means comes home to him. If he goes back, he’ll never see this Billy again, Billy who’s believed him and carried him through the days, who came back to find him and stepped into the sights of a gun for him. He’ll be leaving him here to a life of fighting and shootouts, hard work and thin food, danger on all sides, and the thought of losing him floods him with emotion. His heart thumps. ‘Come upstairs with me,’ he asks, voice low. 

Billy looks off into the distance a moment before he tosses away the nail with a sideways glance. He pushes away from the railing and heads for the door; Goodnight pauses just long enough before he follows to run a thumb over the rail Billy’s been working at, and underneath it he traces the outline of a fleur-de-lys, the same as on the flask in his pocket.

 

Upstairs Billy lays down his hat and draws the curtains: as Goodnight comes up behind him he begins, back still turned, ‘If it doesn’t work, if you don’t change…’ 

Goodnight steps up close behind him. ‘You said, we’ll work it out.’ He smiles a little as Billy turns to face him. ‘I guess we always do.’ 

He closes the gap between them until they’re within touching distance; Billy lets his gaze run up and down him. ‘Before I met Goody …’ he starts, then raises his eyes to his. ‘No one saw me. They saw a Chinaman, someone to look down on, or they saw the outside I’d made, cold and hard. I’d made it that way, had to, but it meant I was alone all those years. But Goody – the day I met him, he looked at me like he saw right inside, saw who I was. Sometimes …’ Billy raises a hand as though to touch Goodnight’s arm, and Goodnight lets his fingers circle his wrist, gently. ‘When you say things, I think you’re him. You laugh the same way. And you look at me the same way.’ 

There’s the same open expression on his face as earlier, and Goodnight’s heart contracts. ‘I am him,’ he says, his voice no more than a murmur. ‘And I love you as much as he does.’ 

This time he doesn’t hesitate: he puts a hand to Billy’s cheek, and draws him in slowly, waiting for him to refuse. But he doesn’t: he stares into Goodnight’s eyes, searching, until Goodnight closes the gap to kiss him.

There’s none of the raw shock of kissing someone new – everything about this, the touch of lips and tickle of moustache, the hand on his neck that pulls him close, is familiar and easy. Billy smells of leather, of cigarette smoke and the saloon, but under Goodnight’s lips his skin is a poem he knows by heart, the lover’s touch he thought he’d lost. Billy relaxes into the embrace, his other hand sliding around Goodnight’s waist to tease under his vest, and when they tug each other towards the bed it’s with the feel of a mirrored smile under his lips. 

The soft jingle of the brass carries its own remembrance – he’s done this before, watched Billy sit across his thighs to strip off his shirt, let his hands run over his chest and reached up to draw the pins from his hair, letting it cascade over both of them as Billy bends to kiss him again; Billy’s caught his hand and curled their fingers together as he presses him down, and his breath hitches just the same when Goodnight slides a hand between them.

All this time he’s catalogued the ways this Billy is different, comparing him with the ghost who stands at his side, seeing him thinner, more scarred and worn. But now he finds his beloved again in the tangle of hair at the nape of his neck and the ticklish spot under his ear, the smooth muscle of his abdomen and the jut of his hip; and Billy does the same, his touch practised and unerring, teasing here to make him gasp, caressing slow to stoke the pleasure. Their bodies fit and flow together in a wordless harmony, and as they do the ghosts at their side meld into living flesh to become one. 

He remembers Billy saying, half-believing, _That was you_ , and now he knows, it was him: not a betrayal but a reaffirmation. As Billy leans above him, hair falling dark around his face, as Goodnight’s hands grip his hips and they move together, ‘Billy,’ he says, lost in him, ‘Billy’; he hears his own name in that familiar cadence, the words that are their private bond, and his climax comes not as a shattering, but as the healing that makes him whole again. 

When consciousness returns the room’s turned dark around them; Billy’s fingers are tracing an absent pattern on his shoulder and his heartbeat thuds slow under Goodnight’s ear. In the maelstrom of past and present, the world spun off its axis, the bed is a pool of warmth afloat on the dark, the still centre of the storm. 

Goodnight rests his chin on Billy’s chest. ‘You are the one true thing in my life,’ he tells him. 

Billy’s arm tightens around him. ‘Goody,’ he says, and in the exhale of that single word is an echo of the gratitude he feels. 

‘I love you, Billy,’ he says, and it’s as true as it’s ever been.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Goodnight wakes slowly, his whole body warm and relaxed, the ache of labour in his muscles soothed away. As he surfaces into consciousness he becomes aware of the weight next to him and the head pillowed on his shoulder: Billy is sprawled out beside him, breathing slow, one hand on his chest, hair tickling Goodnight’s jaw with the rise and fall of his breath. Goodnight lies still, eyes closed, and lets himself float in a drifting limbo. One or two faint sounds intrude: a horse whinnying outside and an answering voice, soothing; a distant clatter from downstairs.

When Billy stirs against him Goodnight opens his eyes; the sun is just starting to slant through the curtains, the objects in the room emerging like ghosts from the shadows – the chest with its jug and basin, the outline of his coat on the back of the chair, the boots kicked into a corner. The brass rail of the bed reflects a dull glint; across the room the cupboard door stands slightly ajar, but whatever’s inside is too dark to see.

 _Now_ or _then_? There’s no way to tell, and in this moment of peace it doesn’t seem to matter, the membrane between past and present dissolved until the times coalesce into one, anchored by a single presence: _nothing else matters, as long as I have him_.

Then in the street below, an unmistakeable hum, an engine, swelling louder and tumbling him back into time, into _now_. 

‘I’m back!’ Goodnight bolts upright, shaking Billy. ‘Cher, cher, I’m back!’ And there’s the Billy he married, foggy from sleep but absurdly unweathered and young-looking, joy dawning bright in his face. 

‘Goody?’ Billy scans him, raises a hand to his cheek, tentative at first as though he doesn’t dare to convince himself – then he pulls Goodnight into a crushing hug. ‘What _happened_?’ 

‘It was -- we went out with the herd all night, and then we were here again but I didn’t change over, I thought maybe it had stopped, that I’d…’ He cuts off the rush of words to kiss him, once and then again to be sure. 

Billy’s running his hands over him with the same disbelief. ‘I just -- every morning -- Goodnight said he and Billy would have to move on…’ He stills, holding Goodnight’s face in his hands. ‘I thought you might never come back.’ 

‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Goodnight wraps him into a hug again, as tight as he can, and feels breath warm against his neck as Billy promises, ‘We are not staying another night in Texas. We are going home.’ _Home_. Goodnight has to close his eyes, dizzy with gratitude at the present that’s been given back to him. 

He sits back, brushing Billy’s hair out of his eyes. ‘The other Goodnight – was he here all the time?’ 

Billy’s still holding onto him as though he’ll vanish again at any moment. ‘We had to pretend he was you. It was OK at first, but when he stopped changing back, it was just so hard.’ 

‘Needed you to look after him?’ That’s a story he knows by heart. ‘I’m sorry, cher. Billy was obviously used to taking care of him there – he was always looking sideways at me like he thought I was going to crack and he was ready if I did.’ He can’t help the note of bitterness that creeps into the words. ‘Guess I’m useless in every time.’ 

‘Useless?’ Billy’s laugh, so unexpected, startles him out of self-reproach. ‘Goodnight didn’t need me. He was better at everything, and he was good company, he charmed people just like you do. He was scared, of course he was, but he knew about the future, knew what he expected to find; he would have made out here. But…’ To Goodnight’s surprise Billy’s voice cracks. ‘I thought I might have lost you, and I couldn’t bear it.’

Goodnight doesn’t think he’s ever seen Billy like this, dazed and vulnerable: he remembers his own sense of terror and loss, and he remembers Billy coming back for him, tracking him, throwing himself into a fight to save him, even though he was no more than a poor copy of the man he loved. He whispers, heartfelt, ‘There’s no future where I’m not with you.’

Billy says, low in his ear, ‘I have to tell you something.’ 

‘I know,’ says Goodnight gently. It hardly needs saying, Billy as naked in the bed as he is, but Billy raises his chin, his expression a mixture of guilt and determination. 

‘I gave him your wedding ring. I promised, if it didn’t work, if he couldn’t go back, I’d take care of him.’ 

He looks so serious, but Goodnight can’t stop his lips from tugging upwards into a smile. ‘Isn’t that what it’s for?’ Billy still looks uncertain, so Goodnight takes his hand to rubs his thumb over the matching ring. ‘The other Billy stepped in front of a bullet for me. I don’t deserve either of you.’ 

The anxiety smoothes out of Billy’s face. ‘It must still be here,’ he says, pulling the covers aside, ‘it never travelled with you,’ and there it is, glinting gold in a crease of the sheet. 

He picks it up and Goodnight offers his hand. ‘Put it on for me?’ Billy’s face finally lights up in the private smile that Goodnight loves as he slips it on, still warm from the heat of their bodies, the kiss they share as sweet as the first time it was given.

Goodnight murmurs to him as they rest cheek to cheek, ‘I’d gladly spend the next week in bed with you, cher, but only at home – I don’t think either of us should close our eyes in this bed again.’ 

Billy lets him go immediately, his look of alarm almost comical; Goodnight jumps to his feet, suddenly fizzing into euphoria, and crosses the room to throw back the curtains on the early-morning sight below. 

It’s Ezekiel’s Crossing, just as he knows it, the buildings no different with their freshly-painted signs and renovated boards; but the people – now there are no women in bonnets or men in hats and sacking aprons, no children running past; instead he sees Alice in a flowery shirt and jeans leading a string of horses, Mariah and Abbie in her red boots talking with another woman, the general store clerk unloading a stack of boxes from a trailer. He stands gazing at the sight, so modern and so mundane, drinking it in, until Abbie catches sight of him and nudges Mariah, giggling. 

‘You do realise,’ says Billy conversationally from behind him, ‘that you’re still naked?’ 

‘So I am, cher.’ Goodnight smiles benevolently down at the women, then draws himself up smartly and salutes; they collapse in laughter. 

He lets the curtain drop and turns to see Billy pulling a face. ‘You could really use a shower.’ 

Goodnight bursts out laughing. ‘I have literally not washed for days. That part about the past was true.’ 

He can’t prevent a stab of trepidation when he grasps the handle of the bathroom door, but there it is, all white tiles and chrome, proof positive he’s back where he belongs. A shower, steaming hot water and soap – right now he can’t imagine that such simple luxury will ever seem ordinary. 

‘Come in with me,’ he invites with a waggle of his eyebrows; Billy snorts. ‘Only if I get to bring a scrubbing brush.’ 

‘Bristly,’ winks Goodnight, turning on the water, and grabs his hand to pull him into the steam.

 

When he emerges, towelled off and glowing, he puts aside his old-style vest and pants in favour of jeans and a blue checked shirt. _Laundry at the end of the week_ , he hears in Billy’s voice: are they still stepping through their day together, he wonders, the other Goodnight packing up his saddlebags as he did yesterday, clearing out all traces of their stay? 

Here-and-now Billy, in a clean shirt and his black vest, is incongruously working at his hair with detangler and comb in the bathroom. ‘You may have to reckon with Jack,’ he warns, eyes finding Goodnight’s in the mirror. ‘I sounded him out about staying on if we had to. And Goodnight was asking about working as a cowhand, though I don’t know how much credit Jack gave it.’ 

Goodnight comes up behind him to nuzzle against the back of his neck. ‘What do we say? Just make out it was all a joke?’ 

Billy’s reflection looks at him quizzically. ‘Is there an alternative?’ Of course it’s impossible – even if they tried to tell the story, there’s no way now to prove what’s happened. ‘All anyone ever saw was you acting strangely.’ Billy knits his brows. ‘Except for Sam.’ 

‘Sam?’ echoes Goodnight. He reads Billy’s expression. ‘He knew?’ 

Billy turns to face him. ‘I had to tell him. Goodnight was beside himself on Thursday morning, and then he pulled a gun on Frank,’ – of course he would, settling things the straightforward way – ‘we took him out of town, upcountry, we didn’t know it was a mistake until Red told us – ’ 

‘Red? I thought--’ Goodnight’s head is spinning, the story too much to process. ‘They both believed him?’ 

‘Sam didn’t, at first. But then he talked to him.’ 

_Just like I did_. What could they have made of each other, Sam the schoolteacher and Goodnight the soldier? ‘How did he take it?’ 

In an echo of his own words, Billy says earnestly. ‘I couldn’t have done it without him.’

‘And Red?’ 

‘He knew already.’ Goodnight’s still standing, bewildered; Billy takes his hand and guides him to the chair. ‘He told us a story about a warrior who came out of the past and found all his people were gone.’ 

Goodnight focuses on him again, struggling to line up the memories scattered through time. ‘I thought there was something he knew, when we talked in the schoolhouse. But -’ it seems like a story he read, not just yesterday – ‘I met him in the past too.’ 

It’s Billy’s turn to look surprised. ‘He was there as well?’ 

‘He was a real Wild West Indian, buckskins and animal-tooth necklace, riding a painted horse. Wetherall was going to lynch him.’ At Billy’s expression Goodnight shakes his head: he couldn’t begin to explain right now. ‘He spoke English, must have learnt it from the settlers, and he seemed to know there was something odd about the town. Sent us back here.’ 

Understanding dawns on Billy’s face. ‘So there’s always been something strange about it. Like it’s a – a thin place, where people slip through ... Red said the warrior who came went off to look for his people and never came back.’ 

Goodnight can’t suppress a shiver at the echo of yesterday’s despair, the ending to his story he’d feared. ‘If it really happened like that, shouldn’t we warn people? Now we know?’ 

Billy sits down on the bed opposite him. ‘Red hasn’t, though, has he? If he hasn’t said anything to Jack, he must have a reason.’ 

‘But it’s not just us,’ objects Goodnight. ‘There was that other guy before, the one Jack told us about like it was a joke – he must have changed places for a day and been scared off. Think we could find out who he was?’ 

Billy shrugs. ‘We could try. But you said yourself, Red was trying not to let on about the time shifts. He tested me out to see what I knew, but he wanted to keep it secret.’

‘Why wouldn’t he…’ But of course Goodnight can understand it – the nine days’ wonder it would generate, _I went on holiday and travelled back in time_ , the flocks of scientists descending, the enthusiasts and cranks, the whole delicate equilibrium of this place shattered beyond repair. ‘Think about it, though,’ he urges, ‘I met other versions of you and Sam and Red, and Jack’s there too, Sam said so. What if it’s not a rare thing to have a counterpart in the past?’ A gambler, a cowboy – why not a maid, a madam, a storekeeper? 

Billy’s brow creases as he thinks. ‘But it was only you this time. Sam and Red, they were here but they never changed, and I was sleeping in the same bed as the other Billy, like you and Goodnight, but we still didn’t. It must be just a particular kind of person, in very particular circumstances. Someone … attuned to it.’ 

Goodnight raises his eyebrows. ‘Surprisingly fanciful coming from you, cher.’ If he’s honest it stings a little: _someone whose sense of self has shallow roots? Someone not entirely at home in the here and now?_

Billy stands up. ‘I just don’t think we’d get very far, telling people. There’s nothing to convince them beyond our and Sam’s word, and Red might not even back us up.’ 

‘So we make like it never happened?’ Goodnight laughs humourlessly. ‘Didn’t think I’d be pretending not to be a cowboy.’ It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, to hush it all up, let everyone think that the man they spent the last three days with was him.

‘Playacting’s what we came for.’ Billy hauls him to his feet and holds his gaze: Goodnight knows he can read what he feels. ‘I’m sorry.’

 

It’s the right decision, it has to be, but Goodnight carries the question with him as they head down to breakfast: what was the point of it all? Such an astonishing, impossible experience, visiting the 1870s, living it, then coming back to pretend it never happened? And all these people here, with a man from the past among them and never even knowing it – how can something so important, so profound, pass without leaving a trace? 

Lost in thought as he is, the threshold of the dining room brings him up short, out of step with time once more. All this food, all this _choice_ , sausage and eggs, warm muffins and fruit, granola and orange juice, hot and fresh and every bite good: how can everyone be so casual about it? 

He fills his plate and follows Billy to a table, overwhelmed by the cornucopia on display; as Billy pours the coffee he asks, low, ‘What did the other Goodnight make of all this?’ 

Billy pushes his cup over, as troubled as he is. ‘Never properly believed it, I don’t think. That was the thing – we convinced him it wasn’t a dream, eventually, but he still found it hard to credit that he was really in the future, because so much was the same. I mean, they had science fiction then, and he expected, what did he say, _underwater cities and trips to the moon_. If we’d been in Austin it would have been different – I could have shown him skyscrapers and freeways and planes, but here…’ 

A place so carefully contrived to be ‘authentic’. Goodnight shakes his head, baffled again by the ultimate purposelessness of it: has the other Goodnight gained as little from the experience as he has?

‘Goodnight!’ He’s startled from his reflection by the hand which lands on his shoulder, Jack looming benevolently behind him. ‘Near didn’t recognise you out of your proper getup,’ he teases. ‘If you’re still intending to stay and work for your keep you won’t be dallying over breakfast – stables are in sore need of shovelling out.’ 

Goodnight’s grateful for the twinkle in his eye that offers him a graceful retreat. ‘Fresh air and exercise must have gone to my head these last few days.’ 

Jack slaps him on the back, amused. ‘It can do that, and I won’t be holding you to any promises rashly made.’ 

‘You get a lot of guests swearing to you they’re going to stay?’ Goodnight exchanges a careful look with Billy. 

‘Oh, plenty.’ Jack hooks out a chair to join them. ‘Count it a successful vacation if I do, and I could tell you the names of the ones keep on coming back.’ 

‘Think you’ll be counting us in them,’ says Billy before Goodnight can, and Jack chuckles in gratification. 

‘Guessed you might be. Like I said, something about this place just changes your perspective.’ 

‘Certainly does that,’ agrees Goodnight fervently. 

Jack helps himself to coffee. ‘You’ve come on a long way, you and Billy both – wouldn’t recognise you from two weeks ago.’ 

_I was in a shootout. I helped stop a lynching. I doctored a bullet wound_. ‘Steep learning curve,’ says Goodnight hoarsely, avoiding Billy’s eye. 

‘Oh, now.’ Jack shakes his head. ‘You’re too hard on yourself, Goody. These last few days you’ve shown the makings of a fine hand.’ Goodnight studies his expression but can’t find anything more in it than bluff goodwill. 

‘Think right now we’re ready to go back home,’ says Billy firmly. ‘Though it’s been … an education.’ 

‘Well, you know where to find us, and there’s always work to do.’ Jack cranes around to wave at Silas as he thumps through the lobby with a set of cases. ‘Right now, though, we’ll be riding back over to the ranch all together around eleven.’ 

‘Sam,’ says Goodnight suddenly. He pushes back his chair. ‘Reckon I should go and square things with him.’ 

‘Good call,’ says Billy, with a tiny nod. ‘I’ll see to things here.’ 

‘Just saw him outside,’ offers Jack helpfully. ‘Headed up thataway.’ 

As Goodnight stands to go Billy picks up the pot to refill his own and Jack’s cups. ‘You ever get customers that can’t take to staying out here?’

 

Pushing through the polished wooden doors of the hotel into the morning sun Goodnight steps into a town transformed, as much a part of the modern world as he’s seen it – beside the horses tethered to the hitching-post a trailer stands waiting to collect their cases, and a pickup is zipping around with supplies for the kitchens and bathhouse, the housekeeping staff going back and forth with laundry and refuse bags. Changeover day, he realises, this is a business after all, time to lift the curtain on the make-believe and rearrange the scenery for the new cast of actors. 

One or two guests are out already, sunning themselves while they wait, though Sam’s not among them; Goodnight waves cheerfully, but small talk’s the last thing he wants right now. He sets out along the street in the direction Jack indicated, past the General Store, the stack of crates at its door eerily similar to yesterday, past the well where he watched a man haul up a dripping bucket, past the bank, the lettering on its door so bright the last time he saw it, now faded and dim. It feels strangely intimate, as though he alone has glimpsed the soul of the town. _Why me, though? What am I supposed to have learnt?_

At the stables, as Jack warned, there are signs of energetic labour: the newly-vacated stalls are already mostly clean and spruce, and Goodnight has to skip out of the way of Téo toting in a fresh bale of hay. ‘Seen Sam?’ he asks. 

Téo jerks his head, hands full. ‘Round the back.’ Goodnight nods his thanks and swings round the side of the building, skirting another trailer full of tack and tools. From up ahead there comes the sound of voices – a sudden shout followed by a string of smothered curses and a burst of laughter.

The sight that greets him around the corner is unexpected: a man, red-faced and spluttering, thrashing up to a sitting position in a heap of muck and straw; none of the three women standing nearby seem to be offering to help. ‘It’s – you – shit -‘ he chokes incoherently. 

Mariah, standing next to the truck that’s just dumped its load, observes him gleefully. ‘My bad,’ she grins. 

The man stops scrubbing ineffectively at his face – under the dirt Goodnight recognises Frank– to jab an accusing finger at Abbie. ‘You tricked me, you b-‘ 

‘Now, _honey_.’ To Goodnight’s surprise the woman leaning on the fence of the corral and looking on with grim amusement is Frank’s wife Chloe. ‘They didn’t mean any harm by it, I’m sure.’ 

Mariah nudges the lever of the trailer again, sending another small shower of dirt over Frank’s head. ‘Accidents happen,’ she assures him. 

As Goodnight approaches Frank appeals, ‘Hey, help a guy out, won’t…’ but he trails off; in his state it’s hard to tell, but he seems embarrassed. 

‘Bit of a mishap?’ Goodnight asks Mariah mildly. 

She eyes him with a strange suspicion. ‘You here to interfere again?’ 

Goodnight looks from face to face. _You drew a gun on Frank_ , Billy had said: he has absolutely no idea what’s going on. He holds up his hands placatingly. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Three of you seem to have the situation well under control.’ 

There’s a slight but definite lessening of tension: Chloe says brightly, ‘Frank and I were just getting ready to head back early. Didn’t expect to run into anyone else.’ 

‘Nor did we,’ agrees Abbie. ‘Just hanging out here. Pure coincidence.’ 

‘Fate,’ agrees Goodnight. He gestures. ‘Three of you. Archetypal.’ 

Mariah snorts. ‘Could say that.’ 

Abbie pats him on the shoulder with an encouraging smile. ‘You’re one of the good guys, we know. Heart in the right place.’ 

Goodnight supposes it’s positive, if baffling. ‘Thought you’d already had the chance to see that everything’s in the right place,’ he winks, and the awkwardness drains away in another round of laughter. 

Frank’s finally managed to haul himself to his feet. ‘No one going to offer to help me here? Honey?’ 

Chloe skewers him with a look that would do credit to a basilisk. ‘Horsetrough’s over there,’ she suggests coldly. 

Mariah snickers. ‘C’mon, Cee, bet there’s time for a margarita before we go after all.’ She slings a solicitous arm around Abbie’s shoulders. ‘Mind you don’t get your boots dirty, sweetie.’ 

‘Thought we were cowgirls,’ smiles Abbie. Mariah offers her other arm to Chloe and the three of them stroll away, heads together. 

Goodnight stands to watch them go; he can’t say he understood a great deal of that, but it seems a satisfactory outcome. ‘Horsetrough’s not the worst idea,’ he advises a seething Frank sagely, then beats a hasty retreat before he can be drawn into anything more.

 

There’s not much behind the stables, just a straggle of unrenovated outbuildings still defying the weather, but Téo said Sam came this way, so Goodnight picks his way among the dilapidated barns, daylight showing through their broken boards, until he discovers a familiar black-clad figure sitting on an old chopping block, smoking contemplatively. It’s a lonely place to be spending the last morning of a vacation, but he thinks he can understand Sam’s impulse to brood undisturbed.

‘Spare me one?’ 

Sam doesn’t jump at the sound of his voice, but his eyes do flicker up and down, taking in Goodnight’s outfit. ‘Not a cowboy any more?’ 

He’s looking at Goodnight’s face, really looking, and Goodnight cracks a grin. ‘Can’t you tell?’ 

Sam rolls his eyes. ‘Reckon that’s you again right enough.’

Goodnight takes a seat at Sam’s side, accepting the smoke he offers and a light. ‘So.’ Now he’s here it’s hard to know where to begin. 

Sam blows out a stream of smoke. ‘You were really in the past, like Billy said?’ 

‘Last three days. Right here, but in 1876. Billy and the other Goodnight were working as cowhands; I just – woke up in his life.’ Words seem so inadequate to describe the experience. 

Sam touches his arm as though to make sure he’s real and solid. ‘Seems impossible to credit, even though I know the Goodnight here wasn’t you.’ 

‘You talked to him?’ The two of them sitting across a saloon table, just as he’d done with an older, grim-faced version of the man beside him. 

Sam nods. ‘Couldn’t avoid it, you’re a difficult man to keep quiet in any time, it seems…’ Goodnight digs him in the ribs, grateful for the moment’s levity. ‘Weren’t you scared?’ Sam asks quietly. ‘Goody who was here, he took it hard.’ 

‘I was,’ admits Goodnight. ‘I panicked, the first day, Billy drew a gun on me.’ The image is still cold in his memory. ‘When he believed me he helped, a lot, but later…’ He has to take a breath, his chest suddenly tight. ‘Thought I might end up there for good.’ 

Sam looks at him levelly. ‘You’re a brave man.’ 

Goodnight snorts. ‘Hardly. I was scared most of the time, when I wasn’t run ragged trying to keep up with the work. Goes hard now to think we came here to play at it.’ 

‘That’s so.’ Sam studies the horizon; after a pause he begins again, ‘Know what I thought, first thing? I mean, not first thing when Billy said, but when I saw he was right about what was happening?’ Goodnight makes an encouraging noise. ‘I thought, a man from the past, this is a gift. I can find out about the War and the time after, about the frontier, straight from a man who’s lived it. Write a history book to make me famous. But…’ He turns to look at Goodnight again, brow creasing. ‘Turned out what he wanted to tell me about was me. Talked non-stop about Sam Chisolm, how brave and honourable he is, how he’ll always see justice done…’ He rubs at his collar absently. 

‘I met him,’ Goodnight tells him. ‘The other version of you.’ He smiles at the memory. ‘Thought it was you at first, in the saloon.’ 

Sam’s still serious. ‘Guess he didn’t seem much like me after.’ 

‘Same taste in clothes.’ That brings a reluctant grin. ‘It was difficult – I mean, he thought I was the Goodnight he knew and I was trying to play along, but …’ It comes back as he thinks of it. ‘He had a lot of presence. Must have been much harder for him then, but there was an exchange of words threatening to turn nasty and he stopped it just by standing up and speaking firm.’ 

Sam shakes his head. ‘Kind of hoped you’d tell me he wasn’t all that. All Goodnight said, he made me feel I haven’t amounted to much.’ 

Goodnight nudges him sympathetically. ‘They were all better men than us – I couldn’t take care of myself for five minutes. If it hadn’t been for you and Billy pulling me out of trouble my bones would be out there now.’

Sam doesn’t seem to take much comfort from the idea. ‘It got me to thinking, about my future. Something as strange as this, well, it feels like I’m being pointed a certain way.’ He falls silent. 

‘And?’ prompts Goodnight. It’s unexpected, to find the effects of his experience rippling outward like rings in a pond. 

Sam smiles, shy. ‘Reckon I should see if I can turn my hand to justice too. Train for a lawman.’ 

‘A bounty-hunter?’ For a moment Goodnight’s perturbed: has the encounter with the past gone to Sam’s level head? 

Sam chuckles. ‘Not a wild west lawman, no – a police officer. Might not be able to live up to my noble predecessor, but I can try to be one of the good ones.’ 

And through this Sam is far from the hardened gunfighter he met three days ago, Goodnight thinks he can see it, the core in him of calm determination and what he could become. ‘Back in Kansas?’ 

Sam rubs his head. ‘Well, now, that’s another thing – seems to me there’s more worth to be had working down this way.’ 

‘So Jack’ll be reeling in one of us at least.’ Goodnight’s glad if Sam’s found some meaning and direction from what’s happened, but it magnifies his own disquiet. _Was I the eye of the storm_ , he wonders, _my world left untouched when everything else is upended?_

Sam doesn’t answer, examining the end of his cigarette, and Goodnight watches him sideways. He remembers the strangeness of sitting with the other Sam, feeling what it must be like to be so close a friend, and Sam must have felt it too with his counterpart here. Now, though they know each other so little, the bond of trust feels too strong to ignore. ‘I know we’re heading home, but, well, I hope we won’t be strangers.’ 

Sam slaps his back, tension dissolving. ‘Know what you mean. Feel like it’s my job somehow to look out for you.’ 

Goodnight laughs. ‘Billy and Goodnight were going to join up with Sam when they were done here – guess you’re stuck with us in every time.’ He sobers a little at the memory. ‘I think Goodnight’s lucky to have a friend like Sam Chisolm.’ 

Sam ducks his head, embarrassed. ‘Not as if there’s anyone else we’ll be able to talk to about what happened. Though I guess if I’m not going to tell the story, you could. Write a bestseller.’ 

‘What, _I Was A Cowboy Time-Traveller_?’ He can just picture the lurid cover, the hapless tourist panicking in the dusty street as a desperado in a frock-coat draws a gun… ‘Don’t see it, somehow.’

Sam stands up, brushing down his pants. ‘I should be getting back – been brooding out here long enough, and Jack will be looking to round us up.’ 

 

Goodnight knows he should follow, but instead he lets Sam go and stays on a while, looking out across the plain with the town behind him. It’s not far from the edge of town where he halted yesterday; there’s no smudge of dust hanging on the horizon now, but there wouldn’t be _then_ either, the herd moved out and Billy and Goodnight hitting the trail again too. Maybe they’ve already left, off in the morning, Billy listening while Goodnight talks up a storm, watching him with that little smile; the road’s not there any more, but it’s almost as though he can see them dwindling into the distance, black and grey side by side. 

Sam’s suggestion still troubles him: it would be a betrayal, turning the truth into a joke, a story no one has to really believe. _It wasn’t a joke_. It was hard and dirty and terrifying, because for Billy and the other Goodnight it was true, it was their life. And he would have lived it too, if he’d had to. _Weren’t you scared?_ Sam had asked, and yes, he had been, at every turn, the whole experience so unfathomable and difficult. But he could have borne it, he knows, could have stayed and settled to it, with Billy by his side.

Since he woke he’s been buoyed up with delight at being reunited with Billy in this time, back where he should be. But all at once a sense of loss comes flooding, carrying with it a cascade of piercing memories. Billy, looking at him down the barrel of a gun, cold and disbelieving; waiting for him on the range at sunset, dusty and exhausted; standing between him and Wetherall, blade bared; wincing, his face set, as Goodnight bandaged his ribs. Billy, different, refracted through hardship and danger, but the same, the man he fell in love with all over again and left behind, out of his reach for good. 

There’s nothing more to keep him here, no reason to delay, yet it seems so final, to saddle up and ride away, back to the ranch and to the world of smartphones and cars and streetlights; when turns his back on Ezekiel’s Crossing he’ll break this last fragile thread of connection and the Billy he knew so briefly will slip away into the past forever. 

He tosses away his cigarette and makes his way back through the neglected outbuildings to the reconstructed street; and though today it’s no more than a stage set, alive with vacationers and resort staff, Goodnight walks alone through a vision of the past, with a ghost in black and white at his side. _We washed in the bath-house and that’s when he knew. We drank in the Diamondback last night_. At the boarding-house his own case and Billy’s are already downstairs at the door: no reason to go up again and see the room stripped to bare anonymity, and Goodnight’s not sure he could. _I took so much from him, and he gave me all he had_.

He stops, leaning on the railing, and closes his eyes, the ache of loss swelling in him again. _Where did he go? What did he do? Was he happy?_

His hands tighten reflexively on the cracked wood, his thumb rubbing absently over the pitted underside until he realises what he’s doing, what he’s feeling. Can it be? He traces it again, and his heart thumps – yes, faint but definite, an outline he recognises. He crouches down, breath catching in his throat as he cranes to see, and there it is, the shape of a fleur-de-lys in the weatherworn wood, scratched there by Billy last night and more than a hundred years ago. He touches it, awestruck: it’s as though Billy’s standing next to him and he could reach out across the century to take his hand.

Warm and strong, fingers close over his and a hand on his shoulder steadies him. ‘You OK?’ Goodnight looks up, and there he is, in his white shirt and black vest, hair pinned up, dark eyes full of concern. _Billy_. His dark flame, his beacon, scorching through the fabric of reality, always him. 

‘Look,’ says Goodnight. ‘Under here.’ Billy crouches down beside him to let Goodnight guide his fingertip over the outline. ‘Billy made it, yesterday evening, when we were standing out here talking…’ Suddenly he’s certain that Billy and Goodnight in the past are standing right there with them on the sidewalk, their own future in front of them again. 

Billy stands up and pulls Goodnight to his feet. ‘Do you think we could ever come back and catch them again?’ he asks. ‘Change places again?’ 

It’s as though he’s taken Goodnight’s own thought from his head, and a weight lifts from him. ‘I don’t know how – they were moving on, their job was over so they’d no reason to stay. If they ever came back, I guess…’ _But why would they?_ ‘Town never had much future, even then; I don’t suppose they did ever go back. Off into the sunset.’ 

Billy smiles, gentle. ‘You loved him.’ 

It’s not a question, but Goodnight nods. ‘I did.’ 

Billy’s fingers tighten on his. ‘So did I. I couldn’t not.’ 

‘I know,’ says Goodnight again, and this time it all makes sense. ‘Only you for me, remember? I don’t think _when_ makes any difference to that.’ 

Billy puts a hand on his neck to pull him close, resting their foreheads together. ‘I’m glad they had each other,’ he tells him, ‘and I’m glad I have you.’ 

In his touch past and present blend and run into one, and comfort soothes the ache of Goodnight’s loss with the unshakeable certainty that the other Goodnight, his twin, loves his Billy with the same all-encompassing passion that he does. 

And maybe, he thinks, that’s the lesson for him. He’s been to a place where nothing, not even simple daily existence, can be taken for granted, where life is so precarious and so short, and he’s seen how Billy and Goodnight meet it head-on, taking what they can with a fierce determination, the love they’ve found grasped all the more tightly because they know how quickly it can vanish. 

If Billy and Goodnight in the past can live and love in the face of such a capricious and uncaring world, surely he can be glad for the riches he has? _I’m glad he didn’t lose you_ , Billy had said, heartfelt, and standing in the weathered ruins of a town that burst to life then faded like a desert bloom, Goodnight finally lets himself appreciate what it means to live in the now, to turn his face to the light and let the nightmares fade. 

Everything he has in this moment seems a gift newly-given: the warmth of the sun, the new strength in his muscles, the friendship he’s discovered, the home they have to go back to, and most of all, this man who never left his side. 

He strokes the carving once more, Billy leaning into his side, drawing out the last few moments poised between _then_ and _now_. Opposite the other guests are gathering to mount up, the vacation almost at an end. ‘Y’know,’ he says, ‘Sam asked me if I was going to write the story of what happened.’ 

‘And?’ Billy’s frowning slightly, and Goodnight reaches to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear. 

‘I don’t think so. I could write a time-travel story, or a story of the old West, but I don’t think that’s what it was.’ 

‘No?’ Billy looks at him sideways, and Goodnight sees he understands; he shifts slightly to press their shoulders closer still. ‘No. I think it was a love story, and it’s not finished yet.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's read along and kept me company with this story!

**Author's Note:**

> Speak to me: fontainebleau22.tumblr.com


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